Bog Myrtle & Peat

Work and see the weather come. See the cloudscum run above the far hills, then trace it down to fall in the turns and the darkness of a long-bent river, deathly deep.

Look up, look down, look back and everything has gone in less time than it takes to think it. Creamy plains of moorland grass are boily in the rain. The dyke which ran for a mile and more has been foreshortened by the wet wind as it flows from the west. Skylines fade and shuffle like cards in a pack as the hours flood and the work melts beneath your hands, and you feel indoors although it wasn’t long since you looked at the sky and failed to find the end of it.

The myrtle buds were burgundy red before the rain ruined them, and the as-far-as-you-can-see draws out and in again like a breath. Bearings fade until you can’t remember where you came from or what comes next. Just rain which plays on your cuffs and runs to the cups of your knuckles; soundless until it falls off your back as if it needed your help in noise-making.

Ducks are on the river and the smirr has burred their wakes. They cackle and blare, and through the rain there is light on Blackcraig and the stones are already drying there, five miles away. You begin to feel like this is only happening here as the clouds roll on towards the east and the ducks are flushed again on a fresh lap of the bog, thrusting and squirming like darts above you; pressing in the rain above the willows and the reedheads like blasted flags, and you have time to think of their safety when a goshawk comes for one of them.

Who knows how that chase ended. Who knows anything in this weather.