TOP WITHINS

Absence has not erased

the rugged beauty of brooding moorland.

But what else did I expect?

Thirty years between myself and the summit

has intensified obsession, yet eroded boundary walls

and doubled the height of the tree

that now casts a much broader shadow

over imagination's idyll. House walls are crumbling away.

It's no longer as the Earnshaws knew it,

is even more inimical now. The old farmhouse 

in which we once took refuge has fallen victim

to vandals' idle hands

and the Elements' tumultuous battering.

The cries of skylarks seem fainter

than I remember, like an old recording

time-worn and gradually fading into silence.

Buzzards circle prey beneath the summer sky,

and isolation closes in.

Unless a dedicated Bronte fanatic,

you would never venture this far into wilderness

in search of the myth,

nor curse Emily for your aching legs

and the sombre emptiness that envelopes you

with a churlish welcome

that needs no spoken word or printed page

but, instead, appears to issue

straight from Heathcliff's tormented Soul...

TOP WITHINS

I am heading out into the Cornish wilderness tomorrow, so will be taking a few weeks off (as I know from experience that internet connection there is patchy at best)!

So, have a great time until I "see" you all again...:))