On Holne Moor

They mined for tin
Beneath  blue skies
Where skylarks sing 
And swallows soar
And call of summer home.
 
Joyous the  meadow pipit’s 
Undulated flight 
Low over tinner’s spoil 
Now clothed in gorse
Pink Heather drifts
Along the edge
Of long forgotten mining lore.

Perky, the  stonechat pair 
Bob between bush and mire.
He bright and sporting red like hunting pink
She a modest brownish bird 
Trilling gaily  
Over the laughing  stream
Which tumbles down
Off  Holne moor.

To Look Above

It gives us joy
To look above 
To clearness
Of the blue 
A cloudless sky
Earth’s mantle
Arches over 
With clarity of vista 
Drawn deep with searching
The optic nerve seeks patterns
The wherewithal the heavens
Answers yet unknown  
Stretch endlessly away
Our vision finite
Lost within the blue
No clouded markers
No cairns to mark the way
A thinness stretched
Before us
A wonder 
Of the beauty of the day.

Sky on the Beach

Brushing the sand and mixing the sky – took a fair few hours but a pleasing result

The journey is interesting: trying to capture the light and the mood. The experimentation is seeing how colours respond to each other. Knowing when to stop is the hard part. I try to keep it free and use the photograph as a guide but invariably I get drawn too close sometimes. It’s missing the famous hotel – that will be the last brushstroke!