WORDS
Claire Hind
Whitby Mudstone
"... take my steps down to the Fox Cliff Siltstone to lay with Peak Steel
And the Whitby Mudstone..."
​
Take her steps down to the Fox Cliff Siltstone to lay with Peak Steel
And the Whitby Mudstone
A calling from the Mid shore Sea lettuce
To the Bladder wrack rock wrack
Take her steps down to Lower Jurassic Sandstone
To lay with Middle Jurassic Dogger thing
​
And she returns, to walk in the knowingness
That there is the love and there is the pain
She recalls
The love and the pain
Filled with deltaic sediments
She recalls
The love and the scamp
She recalls
A deep listening
Take her steps down to the black tang rock-weed to lay with the erratic boulder and wrap body around rock
And she returns
To walk in the knowingness that there is the love and there is the scamp
She recalls
The love and the pain
She recalls
A Deep listening to Whitby
A Deep listening to Whitby Mudstone
She said it was an outer body experience
She thought she was hurtling through space
A deep listening and an awakening
Matter heard her heart beat
Matter warmed her presence
Matter it was
Matter
Resting heavy at low tide teasing her with deep pool
Inaccessible, she said, totally out of bounds
She recalls
The rock knows what it wants
The rock is in cahoots
It wants the love and the scamp.
And she recalls
The love and the scamp
She recalls
The love and the scamp
She recalls
Mid shore Sea lettuce
Bladder wrack rock wrack
Lower Jurassic Sandstone
Middle Jurassic Dogger thing
Alan
Nice to meet you, bottom living fauna,
I’m not into crab sandwiches, either
They cause acid reflux, make for idle times
Alan, is that you? Is that you, Alan? Alan is that you?
I could die in this world and become it
But you didn’t want it - or warn me of it.
Deep time where the love lies, where the love hides, in the love tide.
Is that you Alan, is that you? Aalenian?
Aalenian Characichnos
Score trace of the Low-slung
Aalenian Characichnos
Score trace of the armoured scutes
Aalenian Characichnos
Score trace to the trip off point
I get that feeling wherever I turn
Walking the trimming to the trip off point
Wandering neap tides to the deep low-slung
See you near Saltwick next to North Sea
Chorus
I could die in this world and become it
But you didn’t want it - or warn me of it.
Deep time where the love lies, where the love hides, in the love tide.
The way you look gets me off the scale
Tongue tided relatives of the modern squid
Wandering neap tides to the deep low-slung
See you near Saltwick next to North Sea
Alan, is that you, Alan, Alan is that you
Is that you Alan, is that you? Aalenian?
Aalenian
Characichnos
Score trace
Of the Sauropod
Aalenian
Characichnos
Score trace
Of Sauropodomorph
Chorus
I could die in this world and become it
But you didn’t want it - or warn me of it.
Deep time where the love lies, where the love hides, in the love tide.
The way you look gets me off the scale
Tongue tided relatives of the modern squid
Wandering neap tides to the deep low-slung
See you near Saltwick next to North Sea
Silt
Are you ticklish, can I tickle you?
Will you tickle me?
Are you ticklish, can I tickle you?
Will you tickle me?
Made of the same matter as the long dead stars
Broken bits, the delicate feet got caught
Walking shaping body to boulder
Pressing her sound
Laying down with rock, changing vibrations
She met a seismologist on a train from Sheffield to York
Getting off at Leeds, staring through the window
Continuing to think on resonant objects
Low tide she channels the sound in rock
Searching for the beauty found in Neil Tennant’s voice
Lying with the organisms. Hey! Who turned it on?
She thinks on resonant objects.
It is happening, the mountain
Swaying seismic rhythms of a deep low hum
Tonal, attitudinal the sound of her voice
They think on resonant objects
Shake to the wind listen and tune
Thermal stress lingering in the ghost voice
Ripple a rock ripple call and response
Sounding her as the resonant object
What came before this?
What came before that?
A Mountain
A mountain?
Different mountain
Long before sand, clay, silt and shale
Long before lines shaped by water
A mountain
A mountain
A different mountain
Deep approach from Sheffield to York
Getting off at Leeds
With energy of resonant objects
Made of the same matter as the long dead stars