Heavens above!
We come upon you
So utterly
Destroyed.
Truly splintered
Ribs and arms
Splayed akimbo
By outrageous power.
What thought you,
Whispering tree,
So torn apart
And hideous?
We gently touch
Your pines
Your cones
Now sleeping.
And what has been
Is now not so,
No longer
Swaying, sighing.
Why solely you
Amid such sturdy friends
Sentinel
On Watling Street?
Quite fractured,
Without response
As we console
Your broken self.
I picture you
And call you ‘friend’.
This ‘ere tree
Fascinates me.
In shape divine
By the railway line.
Balance complete
At thirty feet.
Something true
Just like you.
Nature’s designer
Brings little finer.
This neat symmetry
Sets a mind free.
Sense you we,
Entrancing tree?
Heavy the dread darkness
Expectant the land
Descending and drenching
Enthrallingly grand.
Trees uprightly pointing
Like hairs on a head
Quivering, defiant
While we humans fled.
A furious sight now
Of breathtaking act
Clashing forces collide
Inhuman, in fact.
How savage the onslaught, we didn’t see
My thoughts for my girl and hers for me.
Such tawny plumage has Penelope
Pleasing, intriguing the watchful me
Staccato stalking on yellowed claws
With splendid luck and a safe outdoors
And pray Phantom Fox is late for tea!
Well, just fancy that
When our next-door cat
With a touch of the haughty
And most likely quite naughty
Drops by for the occasional chat.
Tight knit, these pebbles
Although not knitted at all
If our brains were in place.
Magically magical
But truly, touchingly magical
Though impossible to touch.
As if some god had woven them
Having shouted at stray clouds
To form up and bunch in tight.
Just letting us know
Down here but looking up
That some gods value beauty.
Whether knit one, pearl one
Is this god’s speciality
Is unknown to me.
However tightly knitted they seem
We know each pebble
Has its own resolve in place.
The resolve to be fluidly individual
Unmindful of watchers
Careless of admiration.
And, of a sudden
As I looked
Change and separation all around.
Pebbles unformed themselves
Indifferent to me, or the god
And how we thought of them.
No longer pebbles
Neither galleons nor dragons
Whales, pigs nor eagles.
But spectacle and grandeur
Clouds shaping, reshaping
Each day of our lives.
Well, fancy that!
Oh, gorgeous saucer
Cruising, skirting
Clouded skies.
Assessing, digesting
Thinking, deciding
As time flies.
Camouflaged spaceship
Cunning as cloud
And quietly spies.
Such spirit of travel
Exploring new dawns
Thought multiplies.
In our world unknowing
We battle away
Enmeshed in lies.
Slim saucer surveying
A cloudship sweeping
In trim exercise.
Cloudship as spaceship
Skims on patrol
Perhaps us they despise.
Enchanting she gleams
A sauntering dreamer
Our world she defies.
Deceiving me here
She’s nothing but vapour
As the crow flies.
Gleaming creature depart
Away from our years
Leaving us to our skies.
Dissolving, vanishing
Maybe sensing our sorrows
As Earth cries.
Ah, Giant!
How terrible, how your life
Has ceased to be.
So awkward
So broken and defeated there
Lying shocked.
Uprooted, hurt
How crashed and tilted
Smashed about.
Your former might
Like a Majesty upended
Roots blink at sky.
Will your buds
In Spring spring forth again
Hoping, sighing?
Will you be cut?
Will sharp translation come
In cloudy sawdust?
I saw you yesterday
A giant stiffening into wood
Pitied, believe me.
I was filming in New Brighton
A couple of weeks ago
To capture the many murals
And put them all on show.
The gable ends delightful
The images quite sublime
When I was snapping merrily
I found I was just in time.
Above my head and studying me
I saw this beautiful cat
And forgetting all the murals
I fell in love with that.
She viewed me with suspicion
She held me in her gaze
Unconscious of her beauty
Of her ability to amaze.
And so I took away that day
A string of photographs
Of sumptuous murals by the sea
And a princess made for laughs.
I am a strangely fashioned tree
Against the witching sky
With splintered fingers delicate
A slant and darkened me.
My lacey shapes unerringly
Caught in this frozen form
See how the wind persuades us all
Who fiercely beckoned me.
Sparse and frail my embroidery
Pinned up against the sky
I catch the sense that I am graced
That God has favoured me.
I stand inland beyond the shore
My soulful self wants nothing more.
I am a glorious tree I am
I am a glorious tree
A hundred footer I’ll be bound
A hundred footer me.
I am a Copper Beech my friends
And copper is all you’ll see
I am admired for miles around
A giant of a tree.
A handsome beech I do believe
To last three hundred years
To tower above all life below
And shade all joys and tears.
But I’ve had friends cut down alas
So this with me may come to pass.
This loved corner of the Kingdom
So personal to me
Burnished bright by a fiery sun
With hints of mystery, my dears
Which thrill me happily.
This special place, a fragrant haunt
So burning hot thought he
Brings quick, bright chatter all around
As hearts absorb the garden, dears
This world so pleases me.
Just then the scents and early growth
Transfix us as we see
A tiny Schnauzer strains to greet
The Dumpies as they cluck and preen
She senses ecstasy.
Young Bess reviews the pecky hens
Who rove the garden free
Unflustered in their kingdom strut
Towards a coop amid the plants
We, thoughtful, head for tea.
Fast drove we by car
When
Out stepped the hare
Long legged, dainty
Such liquid grace
With casual stride
It nimbly jumped
Verge and foliage
Then, like a prince
Was gone.
Around the bend
Ours and other
Murderous cars
In pincered rush
Missed the hare
And simply
Motored on.
Moments
Of innocence
And beauty
Made fast away
To run in majesty
Through a memory
Deeply
Not forgetting.
We can’t yet be sure what make of sheep you are, my dear
With your long legs so typical of those that leap from rocks
In streams and boggy marsh grass unperturbed, untroubled
With ease and grace of movement that makes you splendid.
And there again, your black face and ears so keen to study
The human staring at you too, making an absorbing picture
Of connection between our species as you urgently wonder
What kind of man am I that may bring dangers or delights.
And also, your marvellous fleece so trim, yourself so athletic
We do believe you are a Swaledale ewe my dear, or perhaps
A Rough Fell and think perhaps you know which ewe is you
Hoping you’ll be kind enough to make this information known.
Your shepherd surely knows but has he the time to greet you
Addressing only you on just your parentage and genealogy?
When hundreds of your kind are in his mind and apprehension
Is this your final call or spared for one last round of breeding?
Well, it seems to me that all these questions wait on answers
For we have met and hope to meet again near Padley Gorge
Up here on the High Peak is surely something to desire again
As Winter fades and Spring bedecks her glades with flowers.
Jess
Hey ewe! Standin’ there
Givin’ me the once over
What’s yer flamin’ game?
Ewe woolly-back, paradin’
Long legs an’ fluffy jumper
Starin’ at me now ‘n’ forever.
D’you want a chase, like?
Through the trees to the gorge
An’ back ‘ere as fast as light.
Ewe are one smart woolly tart
An’ no mistakin’ that, gal
Yer’d make many mincey pies.
I’d race yer to a standstill
If me collar weren’t attached
To me lead me Master’s got.
Or if ‘e’d got another collar
Would yer come home with us
An’ be me pal forevermore?
I found you watching from within those trees
One captive soul from someone’s captive flock
Yet free to run and question why indeed I’m here
Free to race on skipping feet to place a gorge
Between your panting self and those who might
Wish you dark misfortune on this dazzling day.
And yet, proud ewe, I’ll have you know my peace
To you and all your kith around us grazing here
That I, who passing by, a stranger to your fell
Admire your haughty self and sunny, upright form
And though your captive fleece be taken soon
You keep your place to outstare our future selves.
That passing moment caught when we two beings met
And yet again before life’s curious circumstance is set?
Slenderest forms of silver birch
Searching, stretching skyward
Aching to reach this azure sky
Fearful their beauty lies unseen
They vie to breast the gritty crop
Each crowned a swaying queen
Of silvered day and blindfold night.
Snapdragon and violets alongside showers of flowers with fancy spots
Advancing shiny beetles, jaunty, leaping dogs and wild forget-me-nots
Hollyhocks and roses, this arching, yawny, golden cat, sweet columbine
Await your entrance softly as I hold you loving close, dear baby mine.
Warm breezes dry uncoiling worms, our slippy slugs and fragile snails
A falling apple, high-flying clouds, bright laughter and infrequent wails
Here for you too, my sweet, the curious robin and many a dancing friend
Greet you, embrace you as, with dawning eye, on these you will depend.
The prowling, green-eyed, glinty fox acknowledging your own grand arrival
Parades our hedge wherein shy, hidden creatures cling to their survival
Darting birds, the shaded mouse and countless creatures jumping, leaping
A host of life to thrill you as, now glancing, I catch you dreaming, sleeping.
Here in this garden place, beloved child, you’ll sing and dance and play
For, as God wills it, our natural world shall blessings grant this day.
