The Hill (s.o.c.)
Pushing against hawthorn bushes, steep grade, slippery with mud and last
nights rain, earth giving off a rich, sweet smell that is almost corruption
and the bright suns rays striking down through dappled leaves with such
force you can feel them pierce your skin. This is the Hill and it just gets better.
The mood changes from rich, thick, bubbling life. Simpler and it almost
feels more pure as if a single thread is something that your inadequate mind can
finally get its head around, as you break the treeline and plunge up into
the world of endless horizons, limitless sky and clean, clean wind blowing through
the grasses, teasing from them a whisper that sounds like a benediction for your soul.
The chanting grasses lead you higher and the world opens up before you and
it's just so easy to see it without the scarring hand of man, when this was
a shoreline and Robinswood hill and May hill are little islands, the
Malverns a distant archepelago and the black mountains a far off cloudbank.
But the smell of the grass brings you back, dry and dusty but so clean,
cleansed by the endless combing of the wind. A hoody crow rides the updrafts
with motionless wings, gives the harsh cry you would expect from one
raised on the rough rock of the quarry face, effortlessly tilts his wings and is
blown away like last winters leaves.