‘There is a spring across the way,’ she says, as she points her finger toward the mountain opposite.

Carrying our empty bottles,
she sets us off on our journey to the other side on this last hazy, August evening.
We push our way through the warm air,
scattering in all directions parcels of pollen like glowing, tiny orbs of life-giving potential.
A pool of light sits in the hollow of the valley, gradually fading with the retreating sun
that funnels its way between the two resting mountains.
The light flashes before our eyes and we turn sharply
into the shadow of the mountain
that swallows us into its cool, blue stillness.

We walk along the base of the mountain, the soft ground sprung by the buoyant heather underfoot.
The flat, deep thumps of our feet on the earth follows us
until we are up to our knees in the silty, black waters of the ribbon lake that halts us in our tracks.
We are left with no choice but to wade our way through
until a gentle whisper of falling water draws us to a narrow gap in the rocks.
We face the bank and see the spring–the freezing, clear waters running down from the mountain and into the depths of the lake in which we stand.
An agonising ache begins to travel up our legs
as we approach the point where the two waters meet;
and the pain in our bodies transforms into joy and
we smile as the clouds close in over our heads.

– The Spring, 2020.