This poem was written some time ago at HMP Highpoint but was recently modified and not just for poetic reasons. We used to live in the early 90s below the border between France and Spain in a village called Laroque des Albères and I had to refer to maps to which I had no access at Highpoint. I dedicate this to Jen Scotney, who has been gracious enough to befriend me on Twitter and spends a lot of her time running on what the English call mountains (ie hills below 1000 metres of altitude), though I’m sure she does real mountains as well. I’m a little too old to run these days but I still get tremendous pleasure from feeling at one with nature, using my human engine to speed walk and needing nothing but natural resources as the ancients would have done. I know that she understands all that.
Crossing the Albères
Between Mediterranean and Pyrenees
Arise the astounding Albères
Overlooking the plain of Roussillon
And the Catalan, La Jonquère
A boundary built on tectonic plates
That separate Spain from France
A formidable force that for no man waits
Beauty built by geological chance
By misty morning I make the climb
As the road through Laroque turns to trail
Where others have passed since distant time
Each rocky outcrop tells its tale
Following the shallow, shimmering stream
Irrigating the gardens below
A real estate speculator’s dream
Where figs and olives once would grow
Here ancient man used to work the land
Cork oaks left among phantom crops
Signs of abandoned toil still stand
Ancient craft discarded for bottle tops
Horsewhips from micocoulier were made
In primitive workshops around Sorède
Those artisans may have been poorly paid
But their skills lie buried with the long since dead
Beehives still kept out of visitors’ reach
Now produce only connoisseur’s honey
While tourists flock to Argelès beach
To spend technology’s hard-earned money
Climbing I move from dark to light
My thirst quenched from eternal fountains
Then back into the forest night
Within the shadow of the magnificent mountains
Rising higher and higher, the trees more rare
The scent of different plants abounds
Breathing the wonderful wilderness air
All that’s heard are nature’s sounds
Natural barriers at every turn
Fallen trees and rocks and an old bull
Who roams wild – from the villagers we learn –
Those huntsmen who, sadly, relish the cull
By trees and rocks, the trace remains
Of these men who’ve killed by so-called right
Their empty bottles and rusty cans
All that remains of an unfair fight
But soon the climb becomes too steep
Arms supplement legs and feet
To a path between the boulders I keep
That I might my self-made schedule meet
Finally, the soaring summit I attain
Pic Neulos marks the border
The vista, vast, over France and Spain
Of sea, of sun, and natural disorder
Then descending by the tarmacked road
Much quicker than the track
By Spanish fields, all ploughed and mowed
Travelling fast, not looking back
Arriving, at last, at Le Perthus
The sight of a semblance of civilisation
The restaurant, Chez Grande Mère serves us
A well-earned revitalisation
May you all experience the satisfaction
Of human travel with no motorised tools
Far from the cities’ putrefaction
And those sun-soaked visitors and drunken fools
For to come to these parts without crossing that line
Though their children are drawn to the beach
Is like looking for gold in a deep coal mine
When nature’s diamonds are within one’s reach