I move through empty space.

Today, I start with a blank page.

This is every time I write.

From nothing there is something.

An act of creation.

A genesis, an instigation.

Why?

A search for originality?

I reflect

That ‘A genesis’ looks like

Agenesis

Which is the opposite

Although if you are my brother,

Ancient Greek scholar (he’s a Greek scholar, not ancient).

This would not be surprising,

Perhaps a little disingenuous of me.

It subsequently

Or consequently

Make me think of amelia

Which is the congenital absence of a limb,

Like the people whose ma’s took Thalidomide in the 60’s.

I am on a roll.

Free-floating word and idea association.

Last night, I, alongside millions of others watched Paul McCartney headlining at Glastonbury.

An moment in history

A witness to creation.

From nothing, something.

Silence then sound waves.

Chopin’s nocturnes are on the radio,

It’s windy outside.

Blake is scratching at the door.

We have just returned from a walk.

The pollen has irritated my airways,

I sniff.

Dymista

Runs down the back of my throat and I know

My daughter who also uses this spray

knows the singularly acrid taste.

She’s on her way back from DoE,

That is the Duke of Edinburgh Expedition

If you are reading from outside the UK.

Groups of teenagers navigate open terrain,

Carrying their tents, food and trangias up hillsides and along paths.

I expect she will be weary and sore when she is home this afternoon.

When I was 17, I set-out to walk the West Highland Way.

I caught a train from Queen’s Street Station in Glasgow to Baloch beside Loch Lomond and started walking.

In Scotland you can camp anywhere,

There is no private land to restrict your wandering,

So long as you don’t make a mess or upset any cattle.

Scotland doesn’t need restrictions,

It has midges.

Highland mosquitos that attack you day or night,

That swarm in the humidity of a damp summer.

I reached Crianlarich, a third of the way and turned back.

I hitched home.

I was using my brother’s blue aluminium frame rucksack from the 70’s,

It hurt my back and

I didn’t have enough supplies.

It was the same route I met

A farmer and his wife

Who introduced me to Robert McCarrison.

An early proponent of wholefoods and the low-GI diet.

Tales of laughter and becoming,

Of transforming

Shapeshifting from one state into another.

Like water.

Last night I began, ‘Be Water, My Friend,’

Bruce Lee’s philosophy described by his daughter Shannon.

‘Be Water, My Friend.
Empty your mind.
Be formless, shapeless, like water.
You put water into a cup, it becomes the cup.
You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle.
You put it into a teapot, it becomes the teapot.
Now water can flow or it can crash.
Be water, my friend.’

It is Sunday.