For Robert and Claire Beaumont
By artist Lois Joy Thurstun, inspired by this poem
Hefted.
My interior compass
navigating, turning,
returning to a familiar landscape.
Tracing
an invisible line.
Drawing
a golden thread.
Hefted.
Held safe beside dry stone walls.
My first foot falls
in the places which hold me still.
Places
to which
I will always belong.
People
I will always
understand.
A common parlance.
A shared history,
strong as a well bound book.
Events
that shaped then
who I have now become.
The magnetic pull
of the compass
like a ley-line
tracing itself
through and beyond
my knowing body.
Hefted.
Comments from the author Georgina Noakes
Hefted: a term for sheep that inhabit the unfenced Cumbrian fells of Howgill. They appear to have an inbred knowledge of a particular landscape, a homing instinct that seems to give them a mental map of their own territory, to which they will intuitively return.