This darksome burn, horseback brown, His rollrock highroad roaring down, In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam Flutes and low to the lake falls home. A windpuff-bonnet of fawn-froth Turns and twindles over the broth Of a pool so pitchblack, fell-frowning, It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning. Degged with dew, dappled with dew Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through, Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern, And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn. What would the world be, once bereft Of wet and wildness? Let them be left, O let them be left, wildness and wet; Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet. Gerard Manley Hopkins This is a very important poem for me personally. It was my first introduction to the work of this great nature poet. Much of Hopkins' poetry I cannot fathom by trying to understand it mentally. I have to read it out aloud and allow the rhythm and the sounds to paint the picture for me. I remember how I felt when...
The Restory is a Retreat Centre nestled against Tafelkop, a singular mountain head near Wakkerstroom, South Africa. Here we live a simple life as contemplatives. It is a place of re-connection: with ourselves, people, Nature, Silence and Creativity. Our retreats are aimed at this. Our conversations, writing and art centre around the univocity of life. We need a place that reminds us that we are all one. The Restory hopes to be such a place and space.