In the final section I'm going to read tonight,
there's a reprise here from Sonny Terry and Blind Willie
McGhee, who we listened to on the road home.
River-- one other thing, that Tom referred
to who is an art critic and friend of mine
called Tom Lubbock, who died of a brain tumor.
And he wrote a very moving memoir
as he was going through that process, where
he regards the loss of language and his own mind in this book.
River Inverianvie, Wester Ross.
Pulling my legs along with my eyes,
drawing a straight line in between gray clitch boulders
and tarry puddles.
Walk on, walk on.
When your boots get bent, walk on.
Walk on to the White noise of the waterfall.
Walk on, walk on with a dream of the lock-in.
Walk on, walk on as far as the nameless Glen.
Walk on, walk on.
Kissed beneath cairn and loch and dew, the dark loch cairn.
Walk on, walk on.
Sensing skyline after skyline.
Walk on, walk on.
Anticipating every bend of the river.
Walk on, walk on.
This far, this close to the water.
Walk on, walk on.
Partway up and in very envy or partway down.
Walk on, walk on.
Wherever we are now, I can go no further.
Looking back than the path to the sea.
Letting go of the lock.
I pour the tea, thinking of dear Tom still giving illumination
as language flickered and dimmed.
Tom, poetry is still beautiful.
Taking me with it, quiet but still something.
Ground, river, and sea.
My body, my tree.
After that, it becomes simply the world.
Accepting the mountains may remain too high.
Reeling in the grip of exhaustion,
I nod to the two climbers descending from An Teallach
as they pass sullen with exhaustion.
Being in far eye for days.
I'm too shy to ask, what did you see, how bad was the weather?
Now I have to find my way out of this glen,
back by the water flow, leaving my wishes to walk on.
Walk on, over the next rise, walk on.
Walk on, around the next bend.
To look of adding more, the big look of the world.
Thank you, all.