Winter. February, 2018
Beachy Head, East Sussex
Beachy Head is a chalk headland in the South Downs National Park. The cliff is the highest chalk sea cliff in Britain.
At the Head an ice wind bites at ear and eye as it blows along the South Downs Way. Inside his perennially parked van, the ice cream man stares glumly out of the window at the few cars as they rock in the wind. Doors are flung open, ripped from hands as the people emerge. Pushed into a stoop they struggle toward the view. A finger numbing, shaking selfie later they allow themselves to be blown back to the warmth of the car.
A ragged herring gull is ungracefully bumped and swung as it attempts to land into the wind. A low red-balled sun hangs over the horizon. It casts an orange hue onto the white stripes of the lighthouse and paints the fine swift clouds in gold. At the cliffs edge day-trippers leap into the air as they pose for a picture.
Arms spread they attempt to take flight
Before being scared back to
Earth by the dizzying drop.
Slip between the monuments and marker stones and follow the sheep track away from the Wealdway. Against the thick, dull scrub the golden flowers of gorse startle with their sun trapped yellow heads. A pair of rooks, feathers puffed, perch on top of a low thicket of hawthorn. They sway and bob back and forth as the dry branches bounce in the wind.
Descending the narrow track into the valley the noise of the wind slowly dies away. In its place the silence of the sheltered slopes.
Split by the setting sun the valley is divided.
From the west a great blue shadow
Slowly moves across the ground.
Greedily stretching to take
Hillside, downland and sea.
Far below, sound lost to the wind, the silent sea. The blown white waves race to the shore on the incoming tide. Head Ledge and the Falling Sands out of site, below the creased and cracked water. Fulmars and gannets wheel over cliff and wave as the gloom of dusk settles over the land. The last light of the day is caught and held by the yellow lichen spreading over the branches of hawthorn.
The three quarter black moon rises above,
Destined to be unfulfilled.
Pale light not yet enough
To shine along the track.
Climbing back up the east slope, the crunch of chalk is replaced by the returning rush of wind moving through the grassland. The blue shadowed stalks rustle as they push over and against each other, combed this way and that. A meadow pipit darts along the track, ducking below the looped laces of traveller’s joy and into the dark. A line of silhouetted hawthorn trees lead the way back to the Head. As the light fails, Orion appears above the waves. Ahead the sodium glow of the last phone box at the end of the edge shines along the path. With an icy shove the sound of the wind grows. Angrily it rushes across the open downs, obliterating all noise other than its own.