Helton

Walking into 2017

... after First Footing at midnight.
It was busy on the Ullswater side so I headed on to Helton for some space. 

I was sorry not to have made it down for the dip for Heritage House day centre again this year but it's been the first year I haven't had to do that trek which has been strange...

https://www.blipfoto.com/entry/2130077338887521715

The T.S.Eliot on the radio today has been spot on... here's a bit of The Waste Land...I'm glad I have decided i don't have to understand anything anymore; understanding if it comes at all, comes in fragments...

V. What the Thunder Said

After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and palace and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience

Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
If there were only water amongst the rock
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain
There is not even solitude in the mountains
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
From doors of mudcracked houses
If there were water
And no rock
If there were rock
And also water
And water
A spring
A pool among the rock
If there were the sound of water only
Not the cicada
And dry grass singing
But sound of water over a rock
Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop
But there is no water