The sea is awake here, breathing deeply, in and out, pitching towards and away from the rocks that tumble below my feet. Above the black rim of the mountains the waning gibbous moon is clear and high (97% illumination, according to my phone); its uninterrupted light touches everything like snow, revealing unexpected shapes and lines in the shadowy landscape. Pinholes of water gleam in an outline of hazel branches; the hazel, if indeed that’s what it is, interrupts what would otherwise be a perfect composition of glittering inky waves and luminescent stone – but the camera on my phone isn’t capable of seeing this light anyway. I try to take a photo out of habit, but realise that if I want to capture this moment, the scene around me, then I will need to write it.

Behind me the moonlight lies on a great slab of rock, which has been blasted and exposed to make space for this road I stand by; the light runs along the edge of glistening black tarmac. Posed along the shim of rock-face there is a still assembly of muted-grey birch.

Beyond the islands that lie veiled and dense upon the quiet deep of sea, and the dark sleeping back of the peninsula, my eye finds the familiar pattern of Orion. My pal Orion used to watch, from his spot above the hill behind my parent’s house, as I bolted home before – or after – my 10pm curfew. Twenty years later and 150 miles north he still reassures me with his infinitely non-judgemental presence. I tilt my head back further though and deliberately gaze at the unknown constellations visible in the limpid sky; at this angle the vastness of indigo is accentuated by a darkening fisheye warp at the edges of my vision. In this radiant darkness I can see the shape of the air and this rock I stand upon.