I walked this evening towards the setting sun, and it’s soft apricot light which filled the sky and made my heart ache with an unknown longing. It was as though I could feel the earth turning beneath my feet, and I was walking through the edge of the day, and its ever shifting light.

The dark shapes of the trees leaned across the sky towards me, and the bats came out, stunt flying as though to impress and shock in one sweep.

This picture is taken in Plockton, Rosshire, from the hill at the back of our house as the sun sets over the Isle of Skye.

Here’s my poem…….

The Edge of the Day

I walk a little faster

as though I could catch up with the receeding light

as if my urgent ache could connect with the endless rolling away of the sun

that I might be pulled gently on the fleeing breath of the day

over the lip of the horizon

and on into the endless mouth of brightness

the perpetual day which rolls across the earths face

rolling ever onwards into some unseen future

and the soft apricot light which spills up over the edge of the day

into the coast of the night.

All the blueness of the sky

washed out into softness

and the deepening shadows of darkness

filling in the shapes of trees and hills

Until all that reaches out towards me is receeding light and dark

Until the night wins and I fall behind

Slipping off the tail of light

drifting into the night

and the first stars revealed by the growing darkness.