The Outer Silver Pit

Walk and surround

amongst ash teeth, birch graves
laid down in full view

fugitive sanctuary

earthen fort besets
wet figures in a scene of constants

this sheltered isle, a mast of shores
allied with frost and furze
and dark conifer trails

here memory enters in
amidst the shimmering wind and larksong

a stark cradle of hills

and only the river is an absent guide

wings and colonies – transmitted scent
gaining on the waters

lingering migrations divided sky
wings intricate, interlaced, scattered like glittering arms

galloping across storms in shamanic trances
on tideline strands

solitary intrusions on diminishing horizon

circles and pits, collars of ramparts and lithic gateways

now littered

on the fire-plain creeks and fleets
an edge place now damned

The Outer Silver Pit is a west-to-east valley in the bed of the North Sea. Its widest part is 125 to 175 km (75 to 105 miles) east of Flamborough Head in England. It is between the Dogger Bank and the ridge dividing the northern from the southern North Sea basins, which runs between Norfolk and Friesland.
There is a theory that the Outer Silver Pit was part of the valley of the great ice-age river Urstrom, during some of the Ice Ages when the Scandinavian ice did not meet the British ice, leaving the North Sea bed with open drainage northwards.

Coming soon, from Place Editions “..They Shall Not Rise Until Light Falls Upon Them..” a new sequence of text-works and images informed by the submerged landscapes of Doggerland. An aesthetic summoning and reconstruction of a lost epoch.

Texts by Eijls, images by Tracy Hill

Limited Boxed Edition with texts and artworks

PUBLICATION DATE: TBC

More details of the format and presentation for this edition will follow soon. Please visit frequently for updates. www.placefieldnotes.wordpress.com