Lakeland Dipper 7

Buttermere

Bit of a trek after work but it was a pleasant evening and needed to put some distance between another arduous day. It was beautiful and peaceful by the lake but a rather uneasy swim. I've always felt Buttermere to have a 'dark' edge to it and swimming in it tonight confirmed by instincts - it looks as though it should be a clear swim but an unsusual weed loomed from quite a depth and spooked me. And then the water would break oddly at a distance (... a great white shark ... obviously). And then thoughts of giant pike. How quickly panic can get a grip. I was happier sitting on the little beach in the setting sun afterwards with a bit of supper and a beer. Returning eastwards towards Ullswater felt like a homecoming.

Preserve Me More Perfectly - John Glenday

Preserve me more perfectly
memory of another,
freed of this distant

flesh, this withering blood.
Hold on to me more
carefully than I hold you,

who drift from
my sleeping hands
as threadbare as smoke.

Preserve me
as the moon preserves
the shadow of its influence

in the chambers of a whitened shell,
where a fist sized ocean trembles
and your own blood calls.