WINTER SOLSTICE - 21st DECEMBER 2013

Winter Solstice - 21^st December 2013

The eyelids of the elder year have drooped and closed

as it slowly sank into inexorable and welcome slumber.

Now there’s a calming softness in the half-light of the new day.

On the surface of the lane the frostiness of dawn

reflects the shyly-peeping sun,

like tarnished silver fused in a mackerel-skin sky

where still lurks the shadow

of the half-spent moon.

The sycamore by the farmhouse is oblivious to errant rooks

discussing weighty matters,

and from which a loud triumvirate departs

to issue stern decrees.

On an ancient oak, noted for its breadth of years,

orange leaves still cling tenaciously to sapless branches

before they join the sour cowl that shelters seeds of life,

fully-filled, like the whole earth,

with the promise of rebirth.

 

 

AUTUMN - EARLY MORNING

Autumn – Early Morning

The watchman rook awakes his kin,

slumbering in the nearby communal copse,

eager to debate the doings of the day.

From the hedgerow’s cover,

a silly harlequin-clad pheasant,

oblivious to the coming guns,

shrieks like a rusty wheelbarrow

to mock the hungry fox, now gone to ground.

The curving edge of earth’s horizon

is haloed by a ghostly glow

before the shy sun slowly shows itself,

reflecting in the covering of cloud

only a dim replica of dawning day;

but we who have known darkness

will welcome, once again,

even the shadow-semblance of light.

THE VOICE OF TREES.

This is something a bit experimental.

The Voice of Trees

be still and hear be still and hear be still and hear be still and hear be still and hear be still and hear be still and hear be still and hear be still and hear be still and hear be still and hear be still and hear understand the essence understand the essence understand the essence understand the essence understand the essence understand the essence look on and fear look on and fear look on and fear look on and fear look on and fear look on and fear listen and remember listen and remember listen and remember listen and remember listen and remember  listen and remember listen and remember

The forest speaks with the voice of trees which we, with partial or oblivious minds struggle but imperfectly to hear, while in the gentle flickering of sun through leaves a shadow dances in time to the primordial tune. O, lovely dancer, moving with the grace of years, you can hear the singing of the trees. You learned your steps with that sound ringing in your ears; you moved in sempiturnal harmony with the spirit of the woods, when stag-headed Cernunnos sat and watched from the shadows and lusted after your innocence, as raven-feathered Morrigan looked on in jealous rage and plotted her revenge. Here, time and space conspire to create a sonorous enormity: all encompassing; a vital essence that contains the whole tonality of life itself. But we see none of this. We struggle to hear anything… …except, perhaps, an echo that might come to us in quiet contemplation when we try to empty our dull minds in order to complete the link. Then, in the softening moontime a different dancer comes, her visage pale as death, her dance grotesque with gestures of demise. The forest dwellers revere her - she holds no fear for them - but we who live inside the pale are frozen with temerity as we give up our spirits and fall like empty husks, unconscious to the ground. But now there is another dancer, stepping from the shadows to bring the simple message of the trees that was always there, singing with the wind in treetops and buried under years of fallen leaves -   there for all who were empowered to listen to their ever-changing chant. This gentle dance is easy to understand: learn the lesson, now, that nothing exists for its own sake, but as a total harmony that is greater than itself.

 

THE TIME OF PARTING

The time of parting.

Now is the time to leave the hills

and the summer shades of woodland

where we have lived by shadows,

searching for rare gods

on paths of our own making.

We are no longer bound there

to the earth that holds our dead.

Now is the time of parting

from that half-imagined land

where the very act of speaking

places us apart –

we, the outsiders,

looking in upon a world

where we do not belong

Returning to the garden,

a place of our creation,

we join with Nature

in a solemn contract,

feeling, perhaps,

that for a moment only,

she will accede to our control.

Here there is ground to dig –

sweet soil to feel

that’s fresh and full of life,

whose pure and rich potential

we crumble in our hands.

See! Here there will be beans,

here lettuces and chard,

here garlic,

pungent and lavish-tasting

to mix with fragrant herbs.

In a garden Nature’s vastness is condensed:

feckless roses climb,

but grasped by honeysuckle’s pointing fingers,

and only with our blessing will the foxgloves

exceed their given space.

In this domain the wind is gentler

than when it shakes the beeches

or blows the sea to waves,

and bees and birds and dragonflies

find pleasure in the calm. 

But we make a garden only where we dwell

and, in dwelling, must relinquish

the very freedom that we crave.

Still we hear the echo of the forest,

bringing memories of stranger things

that live in other worlds,

and though the garden’s sanctuary

is made for blessed rest,

still we long for woodlands and for hills.

 

 

THE RIVER.

Finally, after working on a long walking/writing project all summer (watch this space), here's a new poem for the blog. The river here is, in fact, not one river, but four - where the Derwent and the Ouse combine with the Trent and become the Humber. This area has recently become known as The Humberhead Levels and has attracted a big lottery grant for its conservation. It has an atmosphere that is totally unique.

The River

Full moon;

no clouds or wind.

Odours from the river;

sea-mingled smells

carried on the tide,

thirty miles inland from the coast.

Seaweed, the smell,

and river weed,

between the beds of reed;

banks of mud,

submerged when the tide is high,

where sea and river weed

are left when tides recede. 

Now in the moonlight,

(the fullness of the moon),

the surface of the water shines,

still as ice

until a heron stirs.

While, thirty miles downstream,

the beaches are washed clean

and curious stones are rounded

with every salty surge

and gentle lapping;

slow, insistent slapping,

persistent motion

reducing stones to sand

with which

the sea renews the land.

TWO ROBINS

 



Two Robins

There’s ragged robin flowering in the orchard

And a sleek, fat robin singing overhead;

At his strident instigation

But more by my own inclination,

I spare the flowers from the mower’s blade.

SUNDAY MORNING - 7TH JULY

 



Sunday Morning – 7^th July

Not a single breath of wind

disturbs the slumbering grasses,

standing ramrod straight

or drooping with heads bowed,

along the bristling verge;

no movement wafts the drowsy scent

of creamy meadowsweet and honeysuckle

across the shining lane.

In the over-washed blue sky,

a single misplaced wisp of cloud

is fading from embarrassment,

finding itself alone and open

to the disapproving frown

of the domineering sun. 

Scarcely a sound is heard across the fields,

as if the warming day

has formed a deadening blanket

that creates a depth of silence

broken only by a chaffinch

chattering in a nearby oak

and, in rebuke,

a dolorous rook in reverent black

croaks back a single call. 

It seems as if the whole world holds its breath,

waiting patiently for what?

The hour when the distant peal of minster bells

slips over trees and hedges,

or just in rapt anticipation

of the sultry heat of noon?

 

WHARRAM PERCY (a deserted village).

 

 

WHARRAM PERCY (a deserted village).

 

Roofless,

but more accessible to heaven

than when the pious previously prayed,

a saved-from-crumbling church shell

and weathered letters carved in stone,

are what remains above the ground.

Below, the countless generations

cry out from mouldered mouths

to ask why ancestors do not remember.

 

There are two ways to get here:

 

On a good day,

when the clouds are high

and moved by gentle winds,

from the west you’d come by Thixendale,

up through Cow Wold,

where earthworks tempt the gaze

before the hard-drawn gasps of sea-blown air,

and burning calves and heart at Vessey Hill

bring you to the chalk-strewn ridge.

The way is gentle, then.

Below, the head of Deep Dale

sinks and broadens to a flattened floor;

a spring creates a cloud-strewn pond

and this, in turn, tumbles to a crystal beck.

Here, the solitary church

seems quite incongruous,

for nowhere within sight

is any dwelling left

from which a congregation could be drawn. 

 

The way is easier from the east.

A path made hollow

by the trudging feet of years

and flanked by hawthorn,

still white in June,

and cow parsley and buttercup,

slopes gently down before White Hill,

whose open folds stir

curious, deep-seated memories

that emanate the age of earth.

Here four springs converge

and must be crossed,

for better or for worse,

before the lost, once-welcoming haven

meets the wondering gaze. 

 

How many soles have walked this path?

How many souls have passed

on their last journey to the grave?

Many more than there remain memorials

to mark the dreadful truth

that once men’s lives

were valued less than sheep.