As I’ve written before, Mary Oliver’s poems and the Scottish coast seem to fit so well. Of course, she lived on the western side of the Atlantic Ocean. From the coast of the Isle of Lewis and Harris in the Outer Hebrides, it’s water all the way to Cape Cod where Oliver lived. Here are some sunset images from the Stac a Phris arch, so probably around mid-day across the pond on the Cape.
I am in love with Ocean
lifting her thousands of white hats
in the chop of the storm,
or lying smooth and blue, the
loveliest bed in the world.
In the personal life, there is
always grief more than enough,
a heart-load for each of us
on the dusty road. I suppose
there is a reason for this, . . .
. . . so I will be
patient, acquiescent. But I will live
nowhere except here, by Ocean, trusting
equally in all the blast and welcome
of her sorrowless, salt self.
Mary Oliver, Ocean in Red Bird (2009)
If you look carefully at the images above, you can see I stayed on the same cliff to watch the waves crash, sun set, and the clouds play and I just changed lenses to zoom in on the distant isles.
Now a bonus for any of you who might go see Sheep Detectives this weekend. Scotland has a terrific law nicknamed “the Right to Roam.” Meaning you can walk through lands if you respect the owners’ rights and not disturb the land and animals. The trailless hike to Stac a Phris arch is several miles through farmland, bogs, moor, and along rocky coast cliffs. You get to climb some stiles or squeeze through gates. But you also sometimes get accompanied by (or ignored by) the sheep grazing. Here’s one fellow from a little earlier that day.
