Wildflowers in Cantabria by Laurence Morris

Wildflowers in Cantabria

A rush of rock

screams down sierran scree at dawn,

throat rasping, ripe with salt and sweat,

only half a litre remaining

and complete exhaustion near

As the shriek of stone

cuts earth as deep as undersoil,

a sweet tang of moisture erupting

high above the last walled meadow,

no boundaries left to define us.

Laurence Morris works in academic libraries and lives on a smallholding in the Yorkshire Dales with his wife and a tribe of goats. His poems explore shifting of perceptions of people and place and have been published in Blackbox Manifold, High Window, Ink Sweat and Tears, Scottish Mountaineer and Snakeskin.