11th October 2021

 Now  the shadows of the year

Grow longer, now the colours 

Of the year turn away from the green

Streaming into gold and red and  yellow and orange

Fire colours in the cold air of autumn

Now the little groups of birds hunt for

The winter food  stores 

The wind blows cold through the open window  

White clouds drift across the pale blue sky  

A clear sun lights the hills,  it’s heat a shadow  

It’s fire is lost, lost into the crisp dying leaves 

Of the golden trees.

Soon we will see  the filigree of winter,

Instead of this faded memory of High 

Summer days, high  unending skies, gulls  calling  across

The bay.  Light deep into night,  stars like diamonds

In velvet.

Memory is not the same, I shiver in the wintered wind. 

Will these  northern winds  bring the wild swans? 

Will geese  from Svalbard feed  on these  fading  fields ?

All those  pumpkins won’t frighten the winter sprites

As they take the colours away from the land,  

Leaving  here and there flashes of red on the rowans 

To show the birds where there is food,

The holly dark green sharp leaves keep birds and sprites  

at bay,  hiding their red drops till the feasting times of the Nativity 

and the turning of the year  

Quiet

Stillness,  the quiet of day,  sun  on the dunes

The gentle ripples of the clear waters 

As they seek the sea, turning this way and that 

The sky is alive  with music,  there a tiny bird

Fills the blue vault of heaven with song  

The maytree heavy with rich scented blossom 

Casts a dappled  shade

A buzzing  drone  to the skylark  provided  by bees  

Bees  of every shape and  size amongst its creamy blossom,

A mew of the buzzard adds a wild note 

Bass comes from the great black ravens

As they dance in the sky room 

A silence  of singing birds,

A silence of the lifegiving river

A silence  of  bees

A silence  of Life

Where is summer ?

 Winter seems still to grip  me and the land

Despite  blue  skies and  scudding  clouds 

The bright sun seems  cold  somehow

The daffodils  are still flowering and

 the Bluebells and the May Tree too

Tulips finally break cover – a hint of blue  on the hyacinth

each day brings a tiny change

I am weary of this long winter, my bones ache and crack

As  they were frosted twigs

The May Tree blooms  regardless of the cold,

Like the  birds who take the nesting cue from  the lengthening day

But winter clings on, despite  the greening of the valley 

Cold north winds  push the swallows  away from their summer barns

Pentecost passes and the fire is cold and distant       

Homeland

 Dreams  of  winds  on the dunes  

Marram grass whispering 

Ravens  dancing  on the Air 

An amphitheatre of sand and grass  

The river running down to the sea,   

the  mountains over the water 

Stillness  seizes  my soul

Quietness touches my mind 

A holy land,  

A Hajj denied us

Now the summer warmth is in the sun

Nights  draw  out  

Will our pilgrim feet  

Be set free?  will I walk again

On that precious  land?

Will healing return?            

Kaya

High  above the  valley the old causeway 

Runs  across  the northern hills from east west

A stony lane leads  off to the  farm below

In the old wall a gap stile lets me squeeze into the wood

Now in days of the old winter, its dark beneath the evergreen, 

she runs ahead,  white and  brown under the  trees

dancing on the pine needles that carpet the ground.

One leap takes her to  the bank of the fast clean running beck

A water in the tongue of the peoples here.

She  laps the cool water, leaps  back and  off again

flag waving tail , shining in the gloom, a whistle

and she turns  and hurtles toward us laughing,  

plants a muddy paw on my clean jeans and  off

weaving through the dark conifers, following her nose

excitement, in every  glance , every smiling look back at us

One last run to Redmires Water before it falls

into the ravine too steep even for her.

 

The wood ends and the open moor field opens in front of us,

scattered with great slabs of millstone grit, dry but cold

I perch for a while on the broad surface of the rock

And she  flies down the field,  no  farm animals  here today, 

a narrow path leads down the field,  but not for her

The tussocks of moor grass are full of precious scents

here one - there another, soon she is  almost out of sight,

but ever and again  there she is,  the shining white and brown

winking in and out of the grassy mounds. 

I call,  and suddenly  the sense  of  speed and dog

coalesce in the streaking  joyous animal  running to me.

Praised, rewarded she dances  up and around me as we return to the wood

Retracing our path,  thirsty, as soon as she can

she  drinks deeply from the cold running water,  jump ups the other bank,

has a quick nose  before leaping the whole width of the brook,

landing on the soft carpet next to me.

 

Two years she has been on this earth and all is well,   she doesn’t worry

unless we  are five mins late with her tea,

unless we are upstairs, because then she greets us as if we have been to Ulan Bator

unless we  have forgotten it is time for her treat and then the sadness of God is in her eyes as she  lies her head in front  of me.  She is lying on the sofa, warm against my leg,  head on my knee, her deep brown eyes  looking  across the room, gently closing.

Gently sleeping  till another of her favourite people comes in, all is joy and greeting again

turn

 The year is turning, the earth blood is beating

Through the white hills,even while water is ice

Drops of waxy snow, growing from the green

Floating over the snow covered ground 

Spikes of winter green crack the frozen soil

A blue of heaven’s making covers the sky 

The birds scurry here and there, looking 

For nests and food.  The blood is flowing 

Light lasts longer, the sun warms the forgotten 

Corners, suddenly there are insects flying 

Black against the snow, seeking the green sourced snow drop

The robin dives in.

The winter of our earth is ending, blood runs

In her veins again.  The winter of our world still holds us 

But hope is still growing, not the shining perfection 

Of our dreams but a new world begins to emerge

Lockdown3

 It is foolish to sit here and say I am unaffected by the lockdown.   I have worked at home since March 23rd 2020,  I have gone in to a place of work perhaps 7 times since.   Fiona works in a school and has been busy apart from the summer term 2020.  We have continued to get paid.  We managed two weeks of hols last summer, ok we lost a cottage this coming Feb but we have got all our money back.   We have a had a full house with two of our three children staying with us and we have a loving busy and active Springer.   We have good broadband so it’s easy to talk with family and friends.  We can buy in a takeaway each week, we are all good cooks.   We are too all intents safe and secure.  We are not folk for going out and partying, but actually managed to get out for a meal for our anniversary.   We are safe, our eldest who lives away and his partner tested positive for the virus but were completely unaffected.    

Why then should we feel stressed - but why wouldn’t we be.  Our world is in the grip of a terrible pandemic and it seems that we are merely pawns of a government who want to make political points and so few true comprehensive statements alas!

It appears that the virus crossed from a bat species via an unknown (possibly pangolin) intermediate host species in a “wet” market in Wuhan China.  The pangolin, if it was the intermediate host,  should not have been there as it is both pa protected species and wrongly believed to have health benefits  (pangolin scales and rhino horn both made out of the same thing as our fingernails are oddly believed to possess mystic healing properties).  However now, the authorities there,  are trying to deny this to their population. The ex-president of the USA kept calling it the Chinese disease so is it a surprise they push back at this foolishness and truth lies bleeding in the crossfire along with the hope we can stop this again.

Other fantasists like the pangolin eaters, think it is caused by radio masts for 5g phones, others believe the vaccine is full of nanobots.   Governments are so distrusted that no-one follows the rules – except in a few places of either extreme despotism, or rarer still, good trusted governments.

So we see a world slowly fragmenting into distrust and sadness and we can’t hug our loved ones, the next generation who give us hope, the previous generations who remind us of the hygge of Home.   Instead we all have to stand alone, tired and sad, finding some joy where we can, each person or family on their own sandcastle.   Waiting for the isolation to end.  So we all suffer, we  all ache in this time.  

Winter

 Grey clouds touch the earth, mist and damp 

The planet seems to be weeping.

In this time in the pandemic,  

the time when we have a vaccine, 

why is the earth weeping?

She weeps for those who have died

And for those who are yet to die.

Tears for those who death was too soon.

How many have passed into the night

Because of our desire for pleasure,  

our false economic equality of a human soul 

and a business selling beer and fags.

Broken hearts join their tears to the skies.

Broken plans litter the years past 

and the time till the spring.

Those who died without the virus 

Passed from our lives all to quietly

We lost our chance to say goodbye

The darkness of winter is on our hearts,  

we lost our Easter, our Eid, our Diwali.

The earth keeps moving – keeps on turning

The endless dance of gravity brings it  al 

 round and round again and again 

The earth is turning 

The snow has melted away and left the drops of white behind

Spikes of green break the frozen the earth

Soon the celandine will capture the sun on the woodland floor

Easter will come again.

And we will walk in the greening woods, our hearts will find healing

And maybe our feet will join the dance of life anew.