THE WYRE OAK

 

This poem grew like the oak – slowly, unevenly and to a much bigger size than I envisaged. I fought to write it in blank verse but the rhymes just kept asserting themselves so, in the end, I let them have their way. The poem is nothing like I intended it to be and it leaves me feeling strangely uneasy. Perhaps I need to go and sit under the tree and read it.

 

The Wyre Oak 

 

I heard tell of a timeless oak

That for centuries has stood

By a long-forgotten path

Where once, they say, there was a wood.

The old ones call it Wyre Oak;

Its age is such that no-one can

Tell me how it came by that

Or when the legend first began.

 

It was inevitable, I knew,

That soon we would be called to meet,

So on a strange, snow-sprinkled day

When startled Spring and Winter greet

Each other with cold courtesy,

But neither of them can yet agree

Who is to stay, or to depart,

I went to find this long-lost tree.

I knew the path I had to take,

Where few will ever walk again

Along the briar-barriered way,

Where fox and hare play hunt-the-wren

Amongst the scattered, rotting stumps

Of fallen and uprooted trees,

That form self-grown memorials -

Destined to mark their own decease. 

 

Just as I wondered where to search,

How far abroad I’d have to look,

I saw a faintly-beaten track

Not made, I knew, by human foot,

And following its wavering course,

It led me to an open space

Where, just like a watching hare,

The tree stood in imposing grace. 

 

Could this, I wondered, be the spot

Where all the creatures of the wild

Are drawn to when the moon is full,

Unshriven and unreconciled?

And was it also, long ago,

The place where human lovers came

Who knew the talismanic charm

Of ancient trees by ancient lanes? 

 

For just how many lives of men,

How many autumns, winters, springs;

How many turnings of the earth

And drowsy winter slumberings

Have you stood firm upon the earth?

Ah, you were alive when they,

With a stroke of levelling axe,

Felled the tyrant majesty.  

 

And standing in your shadow, now

I realise with growing fear

How fragile we must seem beside

This overwhelming might of years,

As the cruel chaos of our lives

Time exposes, day by day,

Who have no deeply-planted roots

To anchor us in nurturing clay. 

 

But while the span of man is short,

Time is kinder, far, to trees,

Asking nothing in return,

For freely-given centuries.

And blackbirds, chaffinches and owls

Who see your mighty power unfurled,

Know you are more than just a tree;

Here and now, you’re a whole world.

 

 

 

EARLY SPRING

 

 

Early Spring

 

Silently and shyly, Spring rose today at dawn,

Hiding her pale face behind a filmy veil

As she crept across the land,

Anxious to be undiscovered

Until she knows her time is ripe.

But the all-observing blackbird sees her

And greets her with a single, muted call,

As if too shrill a cry might warn departing Winter

And give him cause to stay.

The yellowhammer also notices her presence,

And the friendly, scarlet-chested robin,

Prancing joyfully along the leafless hedge;

But they maintain a quiet reticence,

Anxious not to advertise her early outing.

Only the raucous rooks are unremitting;

Calling callously with mocking mirth.

And on the sweetly slumbering magnolia,

Long buds swell with finger-pointing promise,

Soon to burst in fragrant floral fantasy.

Soon, too, delirious hares will dance again

In moonlight, over greening fields.

 

GHOSTS

 

Ghosts

 

Ghosts are different in the open country,

Unconstrained by the memories of walls.

Here they have a lightness that combines

With the beauty of the rising or the setting sun

Or in the gentle rain melt to liquid joy.

You will, I know, have felt their presence

The many times you’ve walked this way.

Perhaps you listened to the sighing wind,

Playing antediluvian melodies with the trees,

Or at half-imagined footsteps, turned around

To see who, with an almost-silent tread,

Had crept behind you as you stood transfixed,

To whisper beautiful, enticing words

That, just indiscernible, you longed to hear again.

I know! For I have heard them, too.

Not torn from wraiths of long-lost chieftans

Who, from their barrows’ vantage, still survey

The beauty of the land they ruled;

These spirits are not embedded in the earth

But, nonetheless, they have a right of tenure here.

Nor do they cry with grief, or pain of things long past,

But murmur with a deep and pure pleasure

That they are free at last – whilst we,

Whose souls remain ineffably attached to earth,

Cannot yet follow where they lead,

Into the very essence of this land,

To commune with trees and rooks and with the winds,

And fly, with soaring gulls, to unimagined heights,

Or follow the fox on silver-shadowed, moonstruck nights

To where fox and hare have secret shadow- trysts.

In wonder, you and I can only pass along this way,

Bound to a world that they have gladly left;

For they are clouds across a blameless sky

And soar, delighted, closer to the sun.

 

 



A WINTER NIGHT

 

No photograph for this, I'm afraid, so I've used a woodcut by one of my favourite wildlife artists, Andrew Waddington. You can find out more about his work here: http://www.andrewwaddington.co.uk

 



A Winter Night

 

The crescent cradle of the new-born moon

Hangs low amongst surrounding stars

In a bell-clear, iron winter sky,

Illuminating, fitfully and with pale half-light,

The frozen, snow-clad shadowlands

Of hedge and field and tree.

Under the protection of ice-dusted ivy

That thickly masks old, crumbling walls,

A muffled blackbird sleeps alone

With feathers fluffed against the cold.

No breathe of wind disturbs the sparkling blanket

That covers every branch and twig

Of dormant willow, sycamore and oak.

Nor does man or beast disturb the stillness

Except, in passing, one indignant owl

Whose cries complain at the fruitlessness

Of foraging in a bare and icy larder.

It seems as if the earth itself is fresh and clean,

Newly-made and not yet totally complete.

This is what it would be like

If the long-forgotten pureness of spirit

And peaceful sanctuary stillness

That used to dwell in what men called their souls

Could be turned into a world.

And if the heavens were as still,

And time itself was frozen like the land,

This is what it would be like forever.

THE BROKEN WILLOW

 

 

 

The Broken Willow

 

Beware! For I am the wild East Wind,

Terrible, indeed, in the power I can wield.

Back in the icy tundra I was born

And grew in fury as I crossed the frozen wastes,

Picking up, along the way,

Innumerable whisperings and murmurings,

And learning secrets only ever spoken to the wind.

 
It was I who, in years before your time,

Brought to this shore the cruel dragon prows

And, with them, terror, pain and death.

But, in truth, I have no need of other agents,

For I have the power, myself, to initiate

Bitter destruction in my wake.

Those who boldly fish the sea

In boats of fragile planks of wood,

Know me and fear for their lives

For, at a whim, I summon up the waves

And send their bodies

Rolling, lifeless, to the shore.

 
Only The Stone can stand against me

As together we create a song

In which my icy breath

Plays upon the ancient edifice

Strange, arcane and prehistoric tunes;

A rare glissando of rising, held, and falling notes,

Bizarre, lost scales of random accidentals

And not-quite sharps and flats,

Just as I have played the stones for centuries.

Few people comprehend the sound,

But some still feel, inside, a restlessness of spirit

That, day or night, will take them out

To walk, unreconciled, on hillside, cliff

Or wave-beleaguered shore,

Where canny seabirds, free-spirits of the air,

Dance to the tune upon my prancing back.

 
Yet you, a fragile, shaking willow,

Think that you can stand against me.

Beware! For I will twist your limbs unmercifully

Upon the rack of your own making,

Far beyond the point you can endure.

Beware! I say, for I can break you,

And I will……

 

MILLINGTON WOOD IN WINTER

 

Millington Wood in Winter

 

Pale winter sucks the colour from the landscape

As if the earth’s own life-blood has been drained away,

Leaving the recumbent, rolling giant of the hills

In somnolent, semi-conscious immobility.

The weak and wanly-shining sun,

Whenever it might deign to show its sullen face

From behind the lace of curtain-clouds,

Discloses secret folds and long-forgotten barrows,

Otherwise unseen when lit by harsher rays.

 

But in the wood, a new and startling sight prevails,

For leafless trees allow the light to permeate unchecked,

Disclosing an exuberant display of tantalising tones.

Here colours that seemed subdued in summer

Stand out in sudden contrast to the subtler shades.

Bright-green socks of moss adorn the feet of ash and beech,

And from a living trunk, rich chestnut-coloured fungi sprout,

Nourished in the furrowed bark.

Then, over all, a solitary blackbird’s call

Spreads a thinly-beaten, shining silver sheet of sound,

Unmuffled, now, by dampening leaves.

 

 

 

 

 

THE WILLOW IN WINTER

 

Here's the last poem of 2012 - wishing everyone a fantastic 2013.

 

The Willow in Winter

 

Silent stands the weeping willow

Now that summer’s tune has gone

With the small birds who fly south for winter

To cheer new lovers with their songs.

And the fallen leaves now form a carpet

Where autumn scents still linger on

Then the wind disperses like our memories;

Precious hopes that now are flown.

 

You stand beneath the naked branches

Arms outstretched in the crystal air

And glance between the dangling fingers

That gently brush your golden hair,

Waiting for the days of pleasure

When love, like spring, is perfect bliss

And beneath the clothes of summer’s grandeur

The body craves a lover’s kiss.

 

When days are short and nights are darkest

The moon her silver mantle spreads,

Casting over trees and mortals

The freezing cloth that passion dreads.

Still stands the willow in the moonlight,

Still as death through snow and rain,

Waiting for the breath of springtime

When love, like life, is born again.