As I Walked Out One Callow Spring Morning

A tiger-sky, a steady sou’wester and the shining scales of a convulsing fish

As I walked out one callow spring morning, underneath a tiger-sky sporting dark-orange sinewy stripes, the air began to vibrate with the whip and whir of powerful wings as a pair of alabaster-white swans flew overhead.

I’m barely out of the sleepy van, not ten strides away, yet here is enough wonderment to fill the cup of any man.

Raindrops glint as they drop through the sunrise, a rainbow appears behind me, arcing over our sleep-spot near Culbin Sands in Nairn.

Full to the brim, I follow my nose over the bristling grassy dunes. Something smells fishy.

Cresting the sandy rise I’m confronted by surging water, the source of the smell. The tide is in, choppy waves rush up the beach. A steady sou’wester is scouring the surface of the sea and chafing my cheeks. White sand beyond the tideline hitches a ride, picking itself up and rushing straight down the beach in dry rivulets.

It’s ten degrees: if it weren’t for the wind it would feel mild. Three geese struggle directly into its path, making slow progress. I  go in the opposite direction, walking with the wind.

In the distance, coming the other way, a lone figure, who, in time, meets me at the pass.

A younger man with fine red hair and beard to match, walking hard into the wind, eyes narrowed, head forward, mouth set. There are no accessories: no dog, no rucksack, no phone, no camera.

I open my body in his direction, turn my head, but there is neither hem nor haw in return: he doesn’t waver, doesn’t look my way, pause or break his stride, just continues on steadfastly, without hesitation, intent.

The waves are surging around my feet. I come in close, flirting with the ebb and flow, feeling protected in my fully cushioned, wool-rich, knee-length, red rambler socks and trusted walking boots.

Up ahead and out to sea is a long slender sand bank of raised dunes sticking out obliquely from the mainland like the little finger of a well-to-do English aunt drinking Earl Grey tea from a delicate china cup.

Always inviting on the horizon, catching the morning sun, The Bar emanates tranquility.

Although it’s connected by a thin sliver of land at the far end of the beach, it appears to me as an island in the sea, in close proximity, but always out of reach. Its sandy reaches are often scattered with gulls and seabirds. It radiates refuge.

In line of sight between me and The Bar, a flock of ringed plovers gather and plot.

A single bird takes flight, then two more, then suddenly the rest rise together as one, sounding a simple high-pitched call as they go.

The bird-cloud shoots low out to sea, underneath the wind, then flies up in formation to hang suspended for no more than a moment, before the breeze gathers them up and, in a large languorous loop, carries the lot back to the feeding spot, where others are waiting.

Off they go again, picking up the rest of the flock on the wing, shooting low together, then parting ways, diverging into two groups, before looping back and merging once more.

When they change direction, the silver shimmer of their under-wings reflects back the sun like the shining scales of a convulsing fish swimming in the sky.

This flurry of light and movement, the inherent animal-freedom of the flying birds, stirs me.

Overcome, I turn back, and skylark comes up out of the dunes beside me, singing praise.

Simultaneously, two separate rainbows begin to build parallel iridescent curves from the ground up. Before they can reach their concurrent climax, the wind rubs them out.

I walk through a landscape charged and innervated with impulses of light, apparently rendered in rich oil-thick layers of colourful pigment, the next vivid touch immediately overlayed before the paint has dried on the canvas below.

The Bar, Nairn