Flicker

A festival of impermanence

of all that is not

monumental

it's comings and goings

microcosming

the pushy changefulness

of island weather

the wind is a character in this story

 unseen but very much present

tangibly so even 

I take the early afternoon flight from Mainland, with two of the artists - Gustav and Signe from Sweden, along with a few islanders returning home with shopping bags

the wind holds and rocks the plane

as it rises, banks, and descends

toward the narrow airstrip

reminding you that air

is substance

stuff

no forgetting of air in Orkney! 

then at night it sends showers of sparks streaming horizontally from the torches 

re-watching video footage of the bonfire, the flames seem to be straining to escape

to the right of the frame, the direction of the wind 

the wind is continuous sound

rhythmically rustling the fabrics of the costumes

unceasing and everywhere

yet also

irregular and

inconstant

gusting 

the action is happening in the wind

“Fire action!” shouts Frog King 

but the wind is already playing with the fire

stretching                                and                              elongating                               it

d i s p e r s I n g

and

                         scattering

                        it 

everything

is

flicker

faces and forms

glimpsed, then

disappeared

people are mostly standing still

but everything is motion

costumed bodies

mask-mutated faces

linking and dispersing

in a dapple-dance

of flame and darkness

mistaken-for-solid shapes

of daylit habit

undoing themselves

as though in homage

to whence they came

and still

the wind

the inconstancy

everywhere the same

and different

that is

the only

constant

a festival

of flicker