Boundary (After Fire)
The moor after fire does not explain itself. Black peat holds the shape of what was taken heather erased to memory, roots exposed without consent. Low cloud presses down, not dramatic, just persistent. Wind has nowhere to go but through you. Rain arrives sideways, uninterested in shelter. This is where boundaries show. The fire revealed too much features not meant for daylight, lines that survived only because they were buried. Some things endure best when left covered. So it is with feeling. What surfaced was real. What burned was real. What remains is loss without an object grief for something that never asked to exist. The work here is not recovery yet. It is assessment. Where intervention would help. Where it would only scar further. Where stepping back is the only choice. Loneliness settles differently in a burnt landscape. There is no distraction, no softness to absorb it. Only exposure and the knowledge that nothing will grow back on your timetable. The moor does not comfort. It holds. And that holding is hard. But even here the boundary is not final. Beyond the scar, beyond Robin Hood’s Bay, the sea keeps its light thin, distant, unconcerned with today’s damage. A chink, not a promise. The land will green again, slowly, unevenly, without reference to what was. You will too. Not because this hurt was small, but because it was contained named, held within limits, and not allowed to take more ground than it already has. For now, it is enough to stand here and let the weather pass through. Hope does not need to be close tonight. It only needs to remain visible.