online: 23 march 2009 modified: 11, 12, 19 march 2009 11 march 2009 sea sky and rocks
sights and sounds of the red granite coast, Côte de Granit Rose
...as i prepare to start writing, an extra large wave, surging on top of an earlier one, comes shooting up the pink beach between pink rocks to a point close to my feet with the energy of many tons, if not hundreds of tons, of water, enough energy to lift a large boat if it were caught in this bay between rocks which are piled up to a height of 10 metres or so, where crumbling soil and peat and rough grass has i suppose been washed out from between them, before they slipped or fell into their present unlikely-seeming positions... as if after a catastrophe...
...and now beneath the low cloud a lighthouse begins flashing on one of The Seven Isles that a few minutes ago was half-hidden by mist... it flashes three times in about 10 seconds then a pause of about 10 before repeating... as i keep watching the waves... which have now receded a little in this moment of full moon and spring tide on the coastline...
...further along the coastal path is a calm bay of blue water protected from ocean waves by another huge promontory of piled up pink granite rocks in organic-looking shapes resembling those carved by Henry Moore and other modernists... a bay so very different, with tall pine trees growing at intervals, and particularly on the protected east side of each headland...
...returning to this protected bay, after seeing and hearing the rocky beach more open to the Atlantic, i am astonished to hear the same rythmn of waves of varying sizes (but much smaller) in the quiet water behind the headland... suddenly the air is still, the wind gone, and the sounds of walking feet and voices are reflected from, or absorbed by, the nearby hedges and earth banks...
...and next day, as i prepare this for the web, a blackbird hops towards the window through which i see calm receding water yet again revealing sandbanks and islets of seaweed and rock...
...i write this from a room with two windows that is half cave and half bower, with electric blinds to delicately adjust the brightness of sky and of screen so that each can be viewed without glare or too much shadow for the eye (a mixture of both nature and artifice that pleases me greatly, it's a foretaste i think of the adjustable architecture to come)...
...and while i noted these changes i saw the blackbird hop back to a wire fence before lifting itself over with three or four flaps of its wings... and then it's gone and a stillness returns... to the sight of tiny figures of people walking on what was the seabed two or three hours ago...
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