Angel

A lovely day spent with a friend picking up her daughter and her friend who were having their first post GCSE independent adventure staying at the YHA at Alnwick. We stopped to look at the Angel of the North on the way back - it moves me every time I see it. The poem below by Alistair Reid resonated with much of the day's physical and metaphorical exploration of the landscape and life as we drove and chatted. But I also include a link to my last trip and the Billy Collins poem which I also think is smashing.

Where Truth Lies by Alistair Reid

Maps, once made,
leave the impression of a place gone dead.

Words, once said,
anchor the fevers in the head.

Vows, once taken,
fade in the shadows of a place forsaken.

Oh, understand
how the mind's landscape forms from shifting sand,

how where we are
is partly solid ground, part head-in-air,

a twilit zone
where changing flesh and changeless ghost are one,

and what is true
lies between you and the idea of you -

a friction,
restless, between the fact and the fiction.