sing spring

 

We had an errand to run, down to Cornwall. And, as the weather was fine and Deborah knows the area, we went across the moor. It was a revelation to me; I've seen Dartmoor from the south and from the north, looming like a big looming thing; and I've hovered over it and zoomed around it on Google Earth, to get a perspective for the map I drew for Deborah's novel. But now I was seeing the area I'd drawn, for the first time in  real life.

Patches of sunlight chased the shadows across the tors, which Deborah counted off as we meandered up the Dart to Dartmeet, then chugged up onto the wide open country south of Princetown, and walked out to Syward's Cross. 

A skylark hopped ahead of us, then flitted to a hummock and watched warily as I photographed it. Then it took flight, and sang as skylarks sing, filling the big sky.

"Richard and I climbed up the mountain where BS Johnson met God, up on Lleyn, once," I said. "We met a skylark at the top. It may have been a visitation, you never know". 

If God is speaking through skylarks, she may be using the wrong number, as the message comes across as a fax transmission. But you can get the gist of it, I think, even so.

The sun warms my face.

I squint and see, way up there

The skylark sing spring.