Friday 14 May 2010

the world comes to me

The young academic who often visits China
has just returned from a trip to Iceland
when he drove to within 4km of Eyjafjallajokull.

He tells me of the extraordinary crackling sound
of the volcano exploding; twisters of volcanic dust;
a smell of sulphur that clings to everything;
the gigantic plume of smoke that fills half of the sky
and leaves the other half clear and blue.

He thinks that it is unlikely that
he will ever see anything as exciting again in his lifetime.
I make him promise to show me a photograph
and when he sounds surprised
I insist that I would really, truly love to see a photo.

"Well..." he says "if you are really, really sure
I will send you a photo whenever I go somewhere interesting."

"I'd like that a lot." I said.

11 comments:

  1. You are not only charmed Alice, but blessed too.

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  2. Perhaps he'd let you share with us?

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  3. AnonymousMay 14, 2010

    love this

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  4. Yes, can we see them too ( as Bb so kindky suggested)?

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  5. Will you share the photos with us? I'm getting very excited about today!

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  6. I smell a cunning plan to enrol him as a subbie for your blog :o)

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  7. You really are a magpie, aren't you?

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  8. Oh how lovely. Will you share? Perhaps we could be seeing a 'Where in the world am I? section being added to your blog?

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  9. tell him that we are all interested!!

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  10. I know it is asking a lot, but I think a sound file of the volcano crackling would be truly amazing!

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  11. Ooooh lucky you! We have just been doing a postcard swap from around the world and its lovely to see photos of places that we only dream of going to ourselves :-) He sounds like a lovely young man. Seeing and hearing that volcano must have been an amazing experience!

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