Ghostways by Robert Macfarlane

Author:Robert Macfarlane
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2020-10-06T00:00:00+00:00

As

As is as thin as mist.

As is as fast as gale & as slow as tar.

As moves as owls do, hushing through the air.

As moves as hyphae do, slipping through the soil.

As is as light as ash & as bright as foil.

As is as heavy as mercury.

As is as scant as goodness in conditions of scarcity.

As is as massive as dark matter.

As is as asymptote.

As is as nothingness.

As nears Ness.

As is hopelessness.

As is forgiveness.

As is Ness.

IN THE GREEN CHAPEL

VI

The Armourer says, against his better judgement, peering into the green gloom that is all around and within him:

It is as if there is no one there.

The Bryologist and The Physicist and The Engineer and The Ornithologist can no longer be seen in the green, and all that remains visible to The Armourer, who was once so sure of his vision, are the crosses, ten tall thin crosses on the west wall, and ten on the east, five on the north – and the south wall open to all that has now come through it.

The Armourer’s hair is bracken, his innards are thickening peat, his back is clattered into a row of stones, his prick is soft and gilled as the Death Cap, foxes snarl in his blood, his tendons are all turned to high breaking-strain monofilament, all tuned to the wind-blown note of D flat, swifts scream through him on their hooligan tours, each of his ten nails is amber, his borders shift and re-form in each storm and he is Ness.

He sings a little to himself, though the voice is in no way any longer his:

‘Song of Ness, the drifting song, the final song …’

The bomb is buried beneath more layers of moss, more layers of moths.

The ferro-concrete is experiencing uncontrolled ruination.

Willow flourishes as forest, elder jungles each dip, each hollowness.

The falcon is bearing the day away.

The foreshore is moving as if it were alive, because it is alive.

Afternoon moonrise. Long light. Low sun. Slow dusk.

Shingle hush from distal to Ness.

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