a work in progress . . .
Night River Wood is an evolving journal of essays and interludes on the subject of nature, place, memory and mystery, written from a hillside on the Welsh borders by writer and artist James Roberts.
new stories and updates
The Roundabout
by Editor | October 7, 2018 | Journal | 0 Comments
It’s an ancient-looking structure cresting a high hill. The stone was formed in the Silurian period, 400 million years ago. It was gathered from the surrounding hilltop quarries and assembled into a head-height circular wall for Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee....
The Oak and the Swift
by Editor | August 18, 2018 | Journal | 0 Comments
Lately I’ve started to pity swifts. They arrive around Mayday every year, appearing over the river in helter-skelter couples. They then form larger groups and spread out over the valley, chasing invisible entities which must be far more important to them than...
The Blossom Front Line
by Editor | June 2, 2019 | Journal | 0 Comments
How beautiful they areThe people brushing past meAs I stroll through GionTo the temple of KiyomizuOn this cherry blossom moonlit nightYosano Akiko There is a stretch of road over the border, not far from here, which rolls and curves between acres of orchards. In late...
Heartwood
by Editor | January 19, 2019 | Journal | 0 Comments
The statistics: it has taken 12 hours to smooth the surface, 4 shifts of 3 hours, first with 60, then 80, then 120 grit paper. Dust gathering on me, my hands following the rings as they appeared from beneath the deep scores made by the chainsaw. I could have done all...
Unremembered
by Editor | November 25, 2018 | Journal | 0 Comments
The cloud is down. My navigation is reliant on the recall of shapes close up: twisted trees, broken walls, mawn pools, the bends and intersections in tracks. In the past week fieldfares have returned, I can hear them now, ransacking the rowans. A small flock of...
A River of Sound
by Editor | April 7, 2019 | Journal | 0 Comments
Close to its surface a shallow river talks loudly. It's as if the water is passing through many throats, being gulped, gargled and spluttered as it moves over pebbles and rocks, willow roots, rafts of dead vegetation piled against the bank. I propped the recorder on...
Offshore
by Editor | December 16, 2018 | Journal | 0 Comments
On the last day of a family holiday I sneaked out of the caravan just after dawn and walked to my favourite spot on the cliff to say goodbye to the sea. The place was near an old stone hut where fisherman used to keep watch for the pilchard shoals coming close to...
The Nocturnal Bottleneck Theory
by Editor | October 21, 2018 | Journal | 0 Comments
The most useful thing I learned in an 18 year education was that a white sheet of paper is never white. I learned this by spending five full days staring at an unmarked A1 sheet pinned to a wall, trying at first to draw, and then to paint it. The exercise was set by...
Dark Water
by Editor | January 12, 2020 | Journal | 0 Comments
Tonight the river is high. I don’t know what atmospheric conditions out in the Atlantic are driving this endless rain. Like all weather these days it doesn’t seem right. My headlights project two beams across the water, which boils and writhes downstream. Nothing...
Halfway
by Editor | September 7, 2018 | Journal | 0 Comments
The lake is clouded, an almost luminous turquoise. The bottom feels slick, like soaked wood in winter. For weeks the daytime temperature has been over twenty-five degrees yet the water is freezing, fed from the glacier above. I wade up to my waist, then dive. The...