You start by finding a narrow pull off from the twisting road that snakes and twists around the lower fell side like a lazy eel. The sun burns with tropical fierceness, but you don’t care, because it has shone so little lately that you are just glad that it has chosen today of all days to shine out like you remember it used to do when you were a child and there were endless days of strong autumnal sunlight that burnt you brown as hazel when you wandered harvest fields searching, for blackberries and mouth souring sloes which reminded you of your grandmother’s shiny bible jacket and by association, of bitter Sunday sermons when you yawned and squirmed and gazed longingly through diamond panes at vivid skies dipping with swallows.

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But this is not a day for distant memories. Before you the track climbs steeply, switching its view from Cat Bells to Derwent’s sparkling waters and back again. Each time it twists you are presented with a new view point and a new excuse to stop which you do, feeling the sweat tram-lining your cheeks and blotting your shirt against your back, but not caring because you know the climb will be worth the effort and nothing worth having was easily won.

For a little time you watch the clouds drift after their shadows and see shapes there that remind you of wild boar and old warriors or maybe a pig-tailed girl chasing a kite and you wonder if perhaps you have the gift of the seventh born and think of your coming grand child that will dance in the light when the year turns and flowers green again.

Then someone breaks the spell and says, “Look, a buzzard!” and you follow their pointing finger and see a dark speck hovering high in the blue and you know that it isn’t a buzzard, but a kestrel because he says only kestrels hover. You think how does he know that? But you don’t really care because today is not a day for petty squabbles, but a day of being.

You make the ridge and pause, catching your breath and feeling the light breeze cooling your face. All around the world has collapsed into folds of velvet greens and golds, splashed with shadow and bright sunlight and you think of how good the world is, in spite of or maybe because of the bad things that you hear in that other universe that exists somewhere down there, but is as remote as heaven to the sinner on this high place.

Only Cat Bells looms above you. Rested, you make the final ascent and thinking of sinners, you feel a little like God looking down on creation and wonder if he felt this same sense of smug satisfaction that you feel at having reached the top and think, maybe not, to be smug is to be human, and you know the divine are devoid of emotion.

It is easy now. The ridge undulates and carries you along the top of the world with nothing but the sigh of the wind and the ever changing cloud patterns for company. Slowly you feel a change, a shifting of consciousness, a slight sense of disorientation. Your mind empties of mundane worries and like the gently lapping waters of the Derwent that tracks you far below, other words and other thoughts wash into your mind so that you have to stop and search for paper and pen and bring to birth the green poem that struggles for expression.

Reluctantly you climb down from the skies and wend a winding way homeward. You feel a little sad to leave the whipping grasses and scudding clouds, but then you smile and think of the pocket full of words that will remind you of this perfect day.