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| My photo of Cray Moor on the footpath between the village of Buckden and Semer Water - in the Yorkshire Dales National Park (northern England). |
This huge open space!
A place where the mind can vault, climb
And cast off its petty baggage.
I say: The more open, the better.
This is the claustrophobic's heaven.
The agoraphobic's hell.
On these moors “you feel free”.
Here you can breath easily.
Here you can be yourself
Here you can simply be.
Look ahead… and farther ahead.
See those smooth rounded hills.
Those gentle curves jewelled with jagged rock.
The circling curlews above.
In the gaps, dead sheep rot
And life and death go on and on and on…
You cannot own the distance
Which lies in front of you.
All you can do is journey into it.
All you can do is become one -
At least for a meagre hour or two.
You want to stride within the expanse.
To be at one.
Yes — you want it all.
Some folk call it bleak.
They want more trees and bright colours.
The questioning wide-open spaces
Clash with their need for comfort.
For human voices. For human noise.
They want a biscuit-tin scenery
Which looks after them
And which they can mentally own -
At least while they’re here.
But this is what it is.
Open.
And that’s the very point!
Don’t you understand that?
Sure; this landscape was man-sculpted too -
Or at least in part it was.
But that was then.
And this is now.
Yes — this is right here.
And right now.
Paul Austin Murphy 2021
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