Inside The Moorland Silence

I don’t recall the moment the moor first found its way into me — it didn’t arrive all at once though; it crept in through small physical concessions.
It wasn’t loud or abrupt; it was quiet — the kind of quiet that seeps in slowly, like a low mist over the moor, curling into the folds of your mind without asking.
Somewhere between the first sting of cold on my cheeks and the steady ache in my calves, the moor took up residence.


There I stand — or rather, float — my outline carved against the sky, filled not with flesh and bone, but moorland.
Windswept grasses bend in a silent rhythm within me. My lone tent lies pitched at the heart of my silhouette, taut against the breeze, a fragile shell amid this sea of green. It’s both a dwelling and a marker.


Clouds thicken overhead, heavy with unspoken thoughts.
They hang in my headspace like half-formed memories; their weight is oddly comforting.
I feel them move across the sky of my mind, casting shadows over hillocks of memory, over the texture of solitude I’ve come to know.


The moor has no need for conversation; it speaks in its own way.
Sound thins here, wind threads through the grass with a dry hiss, a bird calls once, and then stops.
Moisture gathers and falls from nowhere in particular, ticking against the outer fly on my tent, and I listen, truly listen.
With nothing competing for attention, the sensation sharpens.
The sour-sweet smell of bracken, and a mineral bite of peat, the cold seeps steadily through fabric and skin.
There is no commentary, only the body registering what persists.


Hours pass without acknowledgment.
When rain comes, it comes everywhere at once; when it lifts, the ground remains dark and slick, unchanged by my patience or discomfort.
The hills keep their distance and offer little to no shelter beyond what I carry.
There is something elemental about being alone in a place like this.
It demands nothing from me; it doesn’t care who I am or what I’ve done.
The moor simply exists, and in its vast indifference, I find peace.
I become a silhouette filled with land and sky, no longer separate from it.


Inside the tent, steam from a mug of coffee beads and fades on the fabric.
I’ve watched the weather roll in like thoughts, stormy and then still, and written lines that will never leave the pages of my diary.
Outside, wind leans into the canvas again and again, testing the seams that will hold or fail regardless of intention.
Weather moves through its own sequence, thoughts do the same, and neither asks for permission.
Breath fogs, then disperses, and footsteps vanish almost as soon as they're made.
Dampness works its way into everything; the smell of the moor clings to clothes, cold and friction roughen the hands, and knees ache.
It’s hard to tell where effort ends and the terrain begins.
My form is a hollowed space filled with something far older and wiser than myself. And in this silence, I am whole.

A poem inspired by my story

I can’t recall the day or hour
The moorland took its quiet power.
It didn’t crash; it didn’t speak —
It moved in slow and soft and sleek.
A hush that drifted low and wide,
And found a hollow place inside.

No sudden step, no mighty sound,
Just wind that stroked the sleeping ground.
It filled me not with flesh or fire,
But dampened grass and sky’s desire.
Now I, a figure etched in air,
Hold hill and heather tangled there.

Within my heart, my tent is drawn —
A shape that waits from dusk till dawn.
It breathes against the moorland chill,
A fragile hush upon the hill.
No claim it makes, it does not strive —
Yet in its stillness, I’m alive.

Above, the clouds begin to swell,
With thoughts too soft and grey to tell.
They hang like questions left unsaid,
And drift across my weathered head.
Their shadows walk the turf and stone,
And make the solitude my own.

The moor does not require my name,
It plays no loud or clever game.
It speaks in gusts, in birds grown still,
In water’s drip beneath the hill.
And I, at last, can simply be —
Unburdened, quiet, listening free.

No need to run, no need to prove —
The moor accepts; it does not move.
It asks for nothing I can show,
Yet gives me more than I could know.
In peat and bracken, scent and sky,
I breathe, I watch the moments fly.

Inside the tent, I write and dream,
While mist curls round in threads of steam.
The canvas hums with thought and air —
The wind, the rain, the sky all there.
I sip cold coffee, trace a line,
And feel the wildness becoming mine.

Now I am part of moor and mist,
Of silence, sky, and all that’s kissed
By something older, deep and true —
A stillness pulling me right through.
No longer bound by shape or skin,
The moor is out — and I am in.

And so I stand — or seem to drift —
A silhouette, the grasses lift.
Not lost, not loud, but finally free —
The moorland lives inside of me.
And in this hush, where no one calls,
I am complete — and nothing falls.