SALTMARSHE DELPH

 

 

 

Saltmarshe Delph

Sometimes, deep in hidden corners

We discover whole new worlds.

Like here, where the horseshoe river-course

Bends its oozing flow from south to east,

And in its curving grasp the land is flat and wet.

This place exists in quiet insignificance

To all except the myriad of life

That thrives within its few small acres.

But what a life! Nestled here,

Between the railway

And the sprawling, golden fields,

Is a colony that makes its own sufficiency;

On the edge, and yet a world away,

From the cruder works of men

Who pass it, scarcely noticing,

(Except, perhaps, to wryly smile

At the family of swans that walks,

With proprietorial disdain,

Along the centre of the road),

And in quiet co-existence

Maintains a natural diversity

Whose model we could never recreate. 

And yet, by curious paradox, it was born

Where once men tore the earth with brutal might.

Then subtle nature softly healed the scars,

Creating, over time, her own cathedral

From arching willows, bent

To make a glorious vaulted roof,

And, for a floor, the shining mirror-levels

Where miraculous pond striders

Can walk upon the water.

Here blackbirds, dragonflies and warblers

Delight in curling ferns and wild geraniums,

Whilst grebes and cormorants find rest

And food amongst the bordering reeds.

With their very lives they praise

The deity that we have long denied,

For, today, our gods no longer live in trees

Or call us to the stillness of the glades,

But occupy, instead, the sterile spaces

Deep within the gloom of our own minds.

Here’s proof (if proof were needed)

That even the most restless spirit

Doesn’t always have to yearn

For wilder vistas on a grander scale,

But can sometimes be content

With nature in a gentler guise;

A modest Utopia, perhaps, but nonetheless,

Once we have the luck to find them,

It’s these small worlds that often form

The greatest landmarks of our lives.

GIVENDALE

 



Givendale

Along a wrongly-taken road, unexpectedly we found ourselves at Givendale.

Here, in a setting that would make the most obdurate heathen turn to God,

Or, perhaps, recall the long-forgotten whisperings of other, older deities,

A simple, ancient church stands in a corner at the valley head,

Clasped deep within the arms of overhanging trees

And gazing out with narrowed window-eyes across the stretching water

That mirrors clouds onto the valley floor and feeds a trickling beck,

Joined, along its way, by sudden springs from deep within the hills.

 

No grand Cathedral Close or Minster Yard could ever have such power

To impress the eye and, with its beauty, lift the soul to unimagined heights.

Here I was lulled by charm of sun and sense of place

To sit in silence and, perhaps, to wish I could remain forever

And simply feel that life and time had, in this quiet corner,

Slowed down below the speed that we alive can comprehend.

 

Inside the church the stillness deepened more,

As Green Men gazed out from an ancient arch

And a heady scent of hyacinths pervaded the whole air.

I felt that if I never left, I’d be at peace – and almost envied those who lay

Where wood anemones and celandines grow thickly

And blackbirds’ calls are not a dirge or sadly tolling elegy

But celebrate, instead, the living spirit that pervades this place.

 

Then later, as we walked by woodland paths and ate wild garlic with a greedy joy,

The pungent taste affirmed the all-pervading pleasure

That we, on such a day as this, were here and alive.

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MAY DAY



May Day

Feel it.

The vital life-force bursting from the earth;

surging upwards into plants and beasts

and deep into the loins and breasts

of every man and woman -

unchained, at last, from the emasculating,

iron-binding grip of Winter.

Even the ill-omened blackthorn,

keeper of dark secrets,

has withdrawn her pins of slumber

to become the harbinger of Spring.

In celebration with her sister, May,

she bursts forth with the frothing, fervent,

effervescent foam of life.

 

From every sprouting tree,

the Green Man gazes down,

grizzled, gleeful, grinning,

with lascivious leer and lecherous laugh,

overseer of the ancient rites

of celebration, intoxication, copulation.

From voyeuristic vantage he surveyed

the happenings of ages long before

we became estranged from nature’s ways,

enacted always at this time

underneath the blanket

of oak and ash and thorn.

And he knows that the sap of life

still rises unconstrained and is, as ever,

celebrated on this day.