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| Dartmoor, near Widdicombe-in-the-Moor (Photo: SP Tiley) |
Brown Mustard Hills
by Laura Harrison McBride
Did you know Southwest England
stays green all year, most years?
Fields
on the gentle slopes of southern Devon,
warmed by the sun (at times) and by
the Gulf Stream as it cuts round
Ireland,
divided by deep green hedgerows
dotted with black bouquets of gorse
or naked trees, run out at some point.
That point, I think, is where Dartmoor
begins. Dartmoor, ancient landscape
luring settlers in the oldest times,
now
luring tourists who annoy the Dartmoor
ponies, sometimes kill them by feeding
the docile creatures noxious stuff. And
sheep, also sometimes killed. Tourists
think the sheep are stupid.
Stupid tourists.
Sheep are smart, not stupid. They lie
on
the hot tarmac of the roads
to get warm. Wouldn't you, after
a winter in raucous winds bumping over
Europe, the Channel, and on into your
sheltering hills, bringing borrowed
Siberian
misery? Or buffeted for hours, often
days,
by west winds from Canada, picking up
a bit of fresh iciness past Greenland,
Iceland, and forgetting to leave any in
the land across the Irish Sea.
Overcoming,
in their haste to jump the Gulf Stream,
all
the warmth built up in the calm days of
early winter. Sheep die from this
weather, but mostly from motorists
ignoring the 40 mph speed limit on
moor roads. Stupid of them. Not just
for
the sheep. For their souls.
You can't kill a sheep with impunity.
Everyone
knows that.
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| Three sheep Mums with twins, rare indeed (Drawing by Laura H. McBride) |
The rushing tourists miss the gentle climb
up onto the plateaus
where the ancients built stone houses,
topped
with brush. They miss the stone
circles, some
visible from the road, obvious if
you're going slow.
They miss the ant-like figures of hardy
souls
climbing the tors because they can,
because
from the top of a tor, you can see
forever, and
no climbing gear is needed. Anyone can
do it.
Well, almost. I haven't. Didn't when I
could, now
I can't. Maybe some meditation, maybe
that
will overcome the pains in old hips,
hips insulted
in callow youth by riding horses too
much, too long
and jumping too high too often. But
damn, it
was fun. It was fun.
So I drive slowly, stop at pull-offs,
get out for a
short walk, so I can see the transition
of the
greenish grass near the car parks, to
the brownish
turf where cows and sheep and ponies
have
worked their way across it, and onward
to
the upper slopes, the slopes that look
like
lashings of brown mustard pushed up
into the verdigris hedgerows, sprung
with
birdy trees—trees with berries—and
gorse,
its odd-smelling golden blossoms
springing out whenever there is a day
of constant sun. Not often, not
in Devon.
I long for a ramble on those hills,
even
without the satisfaction, once before I
die,
of cresting a tor. I need to feel the
short-cropped
sheep-covered grass of the turf on my
bare feet.
Maybe Gaia would see fit to stop the
pain, to
reverse the damage to my horse- and
hubris-abused hips.
Whether or not the miracle sought by
the
pilgrim will occur, some miracle will.
Of
some sort. If you can stand barefoot
on Dartmoor and fail to sense the
millennia of humans who
have lived and died, herded sheep, left
treasures
in hewn stone behind, then you need not
return. Dartmoor draws back the
faithful,
those whose veins thrum, on the moor,
to
the ancient rhythms of human life so
different from our own, and so much the
same.
Work, rest, a little love, a little
laughter, a little
sorrow, a little trouble, a departure
to whatever
is next.
That's all. If you can live it near the
brown mustard
hills, you will have all the solace you
need,
any
time you like.
Copyright 2019, Laura Harrison McBride
Copyright 2019, Laura Harrison McBride
