‘This view is worthy of a greater mountain than Binsey’

- in circular conversation with Alfred Wainwright.

the day is as white as no
and the sun shines emphasis -
I make myself as busy as is possible
within the idleness of wondering –
is white the colour of purity or possibility
or emptiness or

Binsey is the odd man out. This gentle hill rises beyond
the circular perimeter of the Northern Fells, detached and solitary,
like a dunce set apart from the class.

there’s something about an empty page of snow
that etches bold the edges of enclosure -
I set out anticlockwise as a means of slowing time
but the tracks of the Binsey clockface
are stuck at ten to five

Occasional boulders met on the ascent
make comfortable seats for the weary.

a barn owl hovers back and forth in hunt of heather -
the bracken writes its rhizomatic repetition in the snow

Its outline is too smooth and gently graded to attract much attention,
and its ascent from most directions is an easy trudge lacking in excitement.

can a metaphor be literal, if so -
I’m walking in the opposite direction
from where I wish to be and what I want to see
but then hurry lacks an inherent sense of foresight

(The text in italics is taken from Alfred Wainwright’s Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells: Book Three, with which this poem is in circular conversation.)