Loop Walking (Fragment) by Murdo Eason

Murdo Eason

Murdo Eason

walking / writing / between world & word. Based in Fife, Scotland. Recent work published in 'New Towns: An Anthology of Place Writing' (Wild Pressed Books, 2020). 'Language of Objects', a collaboration with sound-artist Brian Lavelle (Blind...

Julian Ashton reads Loop Walking (Fragment)

To begin and return over the threshold of the front door.

Placed in a spatial and temporal bardo, the daily loop-walk unspools. An opening into footfall recovered locality. No map, no compass, required.

On the shoreline, listening in to the language of tides: lip-lap-lip, cadences of ebb and flow, wind on water variations. Underfoot, the crunch of tidewrack — a line not made by walking.

The audible is not always visible. At times you can hear salt in the air.

Burnt-orange lichen choruses sing in circles on rock armour.

At the tip of the Ballast Bank, watching the weather arrive like a slab anvil dropping on the Forth. Pebbledash of percussive rain. In days of bright sunshine and languid air, the estuary as glass, when all collapses into a miscible surface of sea and sky.

Occasionally, eerie tendrils of Nessun Dorma drift up the river from a cruise ship, squatting in Rosyth Dockyard since lockdown. A haunting ode to absent passengers, as if to reaffirm existence in stasis, and a time to come again.

A heron descends, barely moving air, pausing time, intent on seeking the littoral margin.

Low tide at the harbour, where runnel streams weave desire lines through silt. Songs of seasonal geese-speech, gulls, curlews, and terns. The bardic yells of rooks rummaging the shingle —crow knows.

///

The loop is tied. Scrunch of footfall on the gravel path, an avian pipe organ of wheezing wood pigeons on the roof.

The creaking door.
Over the threshold — once again.

One thought on “Loop Walking (Fragment) by Murdo Eason

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Also check out

Write About Walking and Listening
longlist
Trail meditation by Jon Rainford

1 Sep, 2021

Post
Walking Home writing competition – pick your shortlist

1 Mar, 2022

Find out which of the 90 + submissions made it to the judges' Top 24 in our Walking Home writing competition - and pick your own shortlist

Write About Walking and Listening
winner
Blind March to London, April 5th – 25th 1920 (‘Social Justice Not Charity’) by Lydia Kennaway

1 Sep, 2021

Write About Walking and Listening
longlist
Dolce et decorum est pro patria mori by E. E. Rhodes

1 Sep, 2021

Post
A dialogue of creation – poet Mark Goodwin and editor Brian Lewis

5 Mar, 2022

Every writer is edited before publication. But what if the editing process is undertaken by someone who knows the writer and his work so well that the editing process becomes intensive dialogue of creation?

Write About Walking and Listening
longlist
Winterfold Forest by Paul Roden

1 Sep, 2021

Post
Writing competition Shortlist announced

9 Sep, 2021

We are delighted to announce the shortlist of writing pieces in our inaugural writing competition on the theme of "Walking and Listening".

Post
From

1 Mar, 2022

Write About Walking and Listening
longlist
Fatherland by Maggie McShane

1 Sep, 2021

Post
Walking Home shortlist published in an illustrated chapbook

11 Mar, 2022

Announcing the publication of WALKING (2022) (see feature image) ISBN 978-1-912960-95-8, the illustrated anthology of poetry and prose that includes the shortlisted pieces in the "Walking Home" writing competition. €4.99+p&p

Post
“Walking Home” writing competition winners announced

26 Sep, 2022

Post
Get ready to write about and celebrate urban trees

17 Nov, 2022

2023 marks a new partnership with the award-winning Urban Tree Festival as we will be administering the Festival’s writing competition, that launches with a free hour long online creative writing workshop on Sunday 4 December. The competition will be open for submissions of (flash) stories or poems of 250 words and under and will run until midnight on Monday 13 March 2023.