Rocks at Spitchwick
Walking in conversation with myself
toward answers that will turn me homeward
I have skirted for hours
the southern edge of the moors
among the scattered nation
of Dartmoor's granite rocks.
It could have been the ferned oaks,
the bright gorse or wheeling hawks
that called me, but today
I move among the rock tribe
the rhythm of their chant in my walk
their gravity pulling at my bones
their signature inscribed across the day.
I see their tumbled forms in herds
sunbathing amongst the bracken
and sit watching the silk skirts of the river
part around their weight
their stillness anchoring every movement
of leaf, of bird, of mind
and of my wandering attention.
Knowing what I need
my body turns towards
the stark rocks above Spitchwick
and I finally lay down my pack
at the foot of the tor like a pilgrim.
What I have carried
feels unimportant now.
To all my questions
they offer only silence,
a deep certainty
born of their long
meditation on the nature of time.
These time travellers
belong to a longer motion
that began in fire
and my journey,
begun also in fire,
burns like a flower's brief wave of colour
along the stem of its short season.
Against these rocks I measure
with sudden overwhelming tenderness
the exact weight
of my perfect flight
through the turning world
Daverick Leggett
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