Orkney Foothills

On the way up the peat track today I met a young Orkney man with a backpack.  He had spent hours and hours, becoming days, wandering in the hills, slithering on greasy, slippery scree.  His obsession had become darkness and light; form of footfall.  Higher still, summit height, he’d tongue tasted clouds forming in a vast wondrous silence.  Shifting air, treasures tethered by a thread.  Demystifying his feelings, night came on.  No breath of wind around the tawny grass.  Dropping down to the blackening loch he knew he’d never return.