from blue to blue

Light refractors


On a wander around my favourite hilltop, I can easily marvel at the magic light produces when refracting on water... Light cobalt from a clear day all around. And if I peep towards the edge of the picture, this ocean blue surrounds the southern tip of the island. From this altitude, I stop and stand - enjoy a view on the same way a great skua or a raven need to survive...  Breathtaking moment as my fingers comb the sky. 
The other side is a treasure. This water-clogged world of mires is home to elusive merlins, 
the smallest of the falcon family on this side of the Atlantic. On arrival, one whizzes below eye level. Such encounter feels like an earthly privilege and I wonder if this individual was not the one who caused so much havoc among a gang of starlings a few years earlier! This impromptu thought takes my heart back to a thrilling moment, as I once found a trio of starlings seeking refuge inside my car as a merlin performed a last minute L shape stunt before my eyes in order to avoid collision! (Yes, it was a boannie day and my car window on my side was wide open!) ...I had come to my hill with a poem in mind. It  since ended published in NorthWords Now under the title Horizons. It tastes like Proust's madeleine in my heart.

Feathers aside, I descend the hill like I descend into night. This glorious blue I like to celebrate so much turns indigo on such light nights. A last look at the top from mid-range in late afternoon lets me believe I could be witnessing a wonderful celestial spectacle as evening clads my horizon, and maybe look for those magic light refractors that are our stars in a clear night.

I love night.
As a poet and a photographer. Last night proved a perfect one to record it through the lens, as I stood at my kitchen door that leads to the back garden. My field of view is impressive. S down to Compass & Sumburgh Head; SW to the township of Levenwick... West to Rompa, my nearest hill behind Hoswick, with the Old Manse and kirk in the foreground... And when night comes, water refracts lights like the sky! It feels serene. As the tide turns, the earth provides background music - as birds settle in nearby fields, this homeworld symphony  can only enchant each moment. 

from blue 2 blue

 At around 2120 GMT, my nordic sky blended cobalt blue with honey. Our nearest star would slide through the horizon with great taste... 


The final embers of crimson did not take long to come and go.

Blue remained light, as we began to descend into dusk and then night. Each moment captured on my memory card  felt a treasure as well as a precious time capsule... Further, further down into night and to the very first light refractor! My eyes searched through the universe. Cobalt turns eventually indigo, as clock hands tick and waltz on the wall... 




There, indigo night. In the distance, across the sea, my eyes are drawn to the  neighbouring township.... Life refracted inside the bay, and around us through secluded man-built windows. I elevated my eyes to the sky to discover Arcturus in my Western sky. Draco and Lyra soon followed, with Ursa Major in one corner of the sky. One by one, familiar constellations danced in my northern hemisphere. I peeped at Perseus in the hope to catch its summer bounty of meteors! ...Just like sparks from a flint of a gigantic Zippo lighter! That takes me back to another piece entitled The Whole of The Sky, written in 2009 and published last year at the following Blog entry: night, 14 August 2010.

Hmmm, will need to keep an eye on the Perseids, cloud permitting, and be patient.

tell me summer boreal style

...So many faces, 
just like a meadow of scentless sea mayweeds facing the sky! 

So many colours...Pristine magic! 

Even painters could take our world for a palette in Panavision! 


And when one walks on this sandbridge at St Ninian's, we lose our feet deep inside blue... 

And when sky turns to titanium...

Life continues its festival!

Monsieur Giono called it "le chant du monde" (worldsong) - here, on the island this song becomes a symphony. 

This world anchors, moors around us; the island turns a honeypot.

Then, back to blue.

Blue of the day delves into  night. after sunset.

This shade of blue darkens slightly for a short while...

Universal game of colours! 

As our world rotates closest to the sun, shades and hues stick to dreamers' dreams and through the lens!

Back to petals...

Like ballerinas in the breeze or summer rain. Shameless yellow of the iris; scented lilac of sea rocket... 

Or danger red of the sundew!

Van Gogh would be dazzled by the game of light on the island! 

Uplifting, ascending, overwhelming sense of joy as Arcania unveils itself in sheer splendour. 

Haiku companions


Flûte à bec -
baroque blackbirds bare to north breeze,
in this great summer symphony.
#haiku fae 60N 

Monkey's fist -

guillemot chicks bounce off white stacks,

adrift in this great fishers' world.

#haiku fae 60N

Crepuscular -

nothing can stop light hemorrhage,

in auto-reverse, spinning sun.

#haiku fae 60N

the final leg to midsummer

wacky racer


13 days to da Simmerdim -  Midsummer, Litha or Johnsmas. 
Summer struggles against the mood of our world, resilient and industrious. Already night has turned a dream. 

Broonies'Taing (Pier)

On a light day, the island feels a termite mound: parenting birds defend their chicks against all odds - others race against cosmic clock to lay an egg after a gale. Flowers explode inside meadows... Sheer pleasure for the colourist! As we wander around headlands, we hear their calls, frantic wingbeats, as we collide into their world... A simple wander by the shore turns into single file adventure! Close to our hut, there is a dilapidated harbour and a secluded beach. 


A world of rust and organic dominates our meaning of the littoral.

Thrift at Broonies' Taing

Man's just like a bird on passage. He builds a nest on the shoreline and wanders off, according to the direction of the wind...
Nature sets a home everywhere: amidst the most unexpected, including piles of corroded machines left to teeth and claws of climate and time.


I found sea pinks flourishing in between a bed of metal and mortar! Here, at the Pier, amid concrete... Where chlorophyll reigns like a queen, like an beacon of light and life.


 And as we follow the shoreline, we forget lines of massive containers once filled with formic acid to focus on lushness of grass, summer meadows where skylarks and meadow pipits mimic each other for a song. And find orchids among buttercup and cuckoo flowers. 


Our small stretch of white sand connects us to the world.


We sometimes find eyes staring at us at the surface of the water.
And then, signatures through a myriad of prints.



They remind us we only exist among them. 


And we you look deep inside sand, we imagine a richer world. 


There, inside this quadrat of our world, I saw in the sand a stampede of wildebeests eager to reach out to the shore... The blueness of the Simmerdim, as we waded like sanderlings close to the surf. 




from one headland to another


if I tire of my familiar tongue of land,I wander off to my other great promontory and watch the world from the edge of the southern tip... On my right, the North Atlantic and on my left, its concubine, the wild North Sea. As they embrace and kiss,  waves of seabirds loot the larder. Shalders fly past and feast on greens, as they forage the stone walled fields...  

This final leg to midsummer reminds us that we shall soon reach the pinnacle of life; promises planted during spring... Like a finale in waiting by a cohort of musicians eager to share their symphony. In the meantime, sunsets still blaze deep inside skies we sometimes lose in evening mist or lazy clouds.  

the oared folk

One year ago or thereabout,

I was standing on my sandbridge at St Ninian and watched folk row in the distance.

I had the whole beach to my feet  and came back home with bits and bolts from evening walk and made the most of this day-dream by engraving those words in ink after freeing them from the kelp...

One moment capsule in one grain where one tide rocks symetrical.

Today i dream  of craft builders who would understand the Atlantic, the deep meaning of humli- baand.............

So there it is without further introduction.

The Oared Folk

They’re rowing,
curved silhouettes towards fringe of one horizon

they’re rowing,
out to ocean they dream to tame

they’re rowing,
oar against kabe, same humli-baand

they’re rowing,
palms against wood create friction

they’re rowing,
clockwork bodies, mechanical

away from all familiar craigs,
elliptic bays,
light selkies songs –

temptation fae da waterhorse

they’re rowing
and I watch you barefoot in sand.


Poet’s notes:
Kabe: wooden pice holding the oar in place; humli-band: a piece of rope keeping oar to the kabe.

© Nat Hall 2009

And oh, this piece was well received at last year's Creative Connections.

hamefarin

Last year, Scotland proudly celebrated "homecoming" - calling all sons and daughters of Scotland's decendants to  join in a nation's festival of raison d'être.

This year is Shetland's version, Hamefarin.


The most norherly edge of the realm has been toiling to host the archipelago's festivities and Lerwick's harbour has become a magnet where twangs in tongues flirt  with summer an simmerdim.

 shetland hamefarin

The world is anchoring in Shetland on each bollard. And on the eve of Johnsmas, this feeling of belonging to an island takes an extra dimension. The Auld Rock is well accustomed to welcome the wider world... This weekend marks our passage through summer and marquis have already been erected at Victoria Pier to give and share a taste of Shetland at a time traditionally asssociated with smiles and merriment. 
Only a few centuries back, the Dutch fishing fleet was assembling in Bressay Sound at the then start of the herring fishing... And as we reel back centuries further, hanseatic and Viking worlds also anchored in the bay of mud.
Today, yachts from both sides of the North Sea gather for the Bergen Race, as masts joust in the safety of the waterfront. Double, treble lines of sailing crafts animate many hearts.

 As night wanders in azure blue, Shetland celebrates life on Earth.