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Buzzards!

Buzzards

A short collection

of

Words

By Mark Ieuan Johnston

November 6th

High above valley, a mew of a buzzard sounds

I wonder what she sees.

The silver ribbon of the canal

The trees now burning as the winter calls

The cold high tops,

Dark stone monuments above

Does she see the brilliant white and dark green

Of the drake goosander?

Does she see the three cormorants

Primitive shapes dark against the grey river?

Does she see the bright winged

Jay with its white rump?

Does she see the azure streak of the winter kingfisher?

She calls again and falls to the woodlands’

High trees in a search for a roost

Llanthony

High summer and the green lawns reach out

To green trees and green bracken covered hillsides

Till they touch the perfect blue dome of sky 

Unbreached by cloud or smoke or raging wind

Perfect stillness

Lifting the verdant earth to that blue sky are the last straight walls

Left of the monks church

The colours of nature fill the vacant windows

Daisies replace the tiles of the chancel

No vaulted ceiling was ever a glorious as the vault of heaven

We are not quite alone in this ancient place of prayer

But the other couple sit and rest, blessed by the sun 

Still quiet of the quire surrounds us and then the call of prayer

High above a star on heavens ceiling calls out

A wild mew of the buzzard calls all to pray, to give thanks for this moment

This perfect slice of light, this fragment of time.

  

Cyfan

We walked out that day from the white cottage at the edge of the town

Down along the river's edge  just above 

The tides highest reach 

Amongst the salt tolerant flowers

Till at last we found the path that lead along safer ground,  past the tumbled stones

Of an old house,  past the the grave 4000 years old, 

Along the edge now of the sea

Down into small bays filled with shells

Jumping over streams that drain the rich farmland

Onto another cove, where the  sea kale grows in abundance

To a wide bay, showing the flat rocks leading down to the sea

The tide was low, the waves distant

And in the midst of the bay a green island ringed by a grey wall

A perch for the little white church, which Cyfan made, 

We turned up the lane and walked back towards
The village, once a royal court of Gwynedd

Up through the green fields and stone walls, 
The lanes curved and danced almost like at a summer ball

Then we saw her – wild and fierce eyes - watching us 

Only a child, her hooked beak, her yellow talons, pale feathers,

The young buzzard wondering what we were.

Mere Country 

I set off one morning in my teens to walk back home

I started by the mere in Knutsford and walked up

Past the three meres in the great park of Tatton

Past Rostherne’s distant mere

And on into the edges of the urban jungle that

Is Manchester, and there, tired from the miles I caught the bus then back home

All around there are meres, no lakes , no ponds  just meres

Some are hidden, enclosed by those who build great houses on their edges

Some are play grounds

Some are for the birds

They are all around in this part of England

Rivers like the Dane, the Bollin and even the Mersey weave and run around  
And  both  feed and are fed  by these meres

Cattle drink by the edges

Legends grow along the reed filled edges

There the Black lake – Llyn ddu- now just a mere on Lindow Moss

But once it was an altar to the gods who received the bodies of men

Ddu indeed

Now and again I find myself back by those meres

The reeds are failing but there is bird feeding platform and a thousand gulls 

The black moss is a SSSI

The lapwings have gone 

But the Buzzards have returned, every tree seems to have one watching you

Seasons turn and again and the world changes 

The Mountain Road

There are many mountain roads in Wales

Mountains abound and so to the high lonely roads that go

Between forgotten places

Roads over commons

Through long abandoned mine buildings

The mountain road near Bargoed is crossed by sheep and

The Mountain ponies, memories of childhood  

They were there when we scattered the ashes of the old man

That was the day I saw Barcud Coch over that road,

A road above the faded broken valley communities

A road through Cwm Ystwyth passed older mines than those in the valleys

Here they sought out lead, not black anthracite,

Past the great dams providing water for the English midlands.

I remember that day when the ridge line was marshalled

By all the buzzards of Wales it seemed

Each one 50 metres apart floating on the sharp wind driving up the edge

The mountain road that passes behind and out of the walled city,

With its castle by the sea.  Its high view of the island framed by the

Heather clad headlands, the long slow descent down and down till we are Level with the sea, a moment on the bridge, 

And we are on that Island, that holy place

  

Buzzards

A bird of grace, strangely thrilling to see

Because it has again become so common

So different from one to another, such a variable plumage

The tourist eagle, so often mistaken for the real thing

They bring a touch of wild to any day

But is still the familiar bird in the tree,

On a telegraph pole

Once a common sight, the apex predator

For the voles and the rabbits

Then DDT and their eggs shell grew so thin

They could not contain the life within

Years passed and slowly the poison leached out

Of the land

Eggs grew strong, birds from the mountains drifted

Down to the farms and fields

Now they were seen as friends,

Preying on rodents that devour the crops

Perched on the tree by the side of the field

Nesting in the little wood in the curve of the river

Lanes and hedgerows where I roamed as a child,

This wild bird is now a common sight.

Where once it was never seen, 

Now they are daily companions

  

This is a small collection of nature

Poetry in which the wonderful

Buzzard features heavily

 

  

Harvest 3

October, time of harvest festivals

Time of the dying sun

Leaves fall, blood of summer

Spilled by the cold and dark

Crops unripened now will fade

But

The barns are full

The green tomatoes will be chutney

The apples are ripe

The crops are gathered in

Winter will come, 

the trees will be bare 

Black twigs will line the sky

The apples will keep

The wheat will make bread

The barley will make beer

Autumn will pass the riches of summer

To the winters hunger

The world will turn

We will eat

Darkness will grow

But light will come again

Hope will return

The Christ mass will mark the beginning of the end of darkness

The day

The day comes to a close,

The shadows lengthen,

The colour slowly gently leaches from the sky

The man sits quiet, on the bench

He sits quiet, night coloured hair.

He looks up, sees the bat flying by

He looks alert, watches it intently

The sky darkens.

Dark midnight colour slowly covers the sky

In the west light fails

The man stands, stretches and enters his sand coloured house

Light spills out across the road and vanishes as the door shuts

Night has come

Elegy for the Britons

A light of winter in the sky 

A taste of metal in the wind

A hunger a cold devouring of light

A people adrift lost

A long drift, drags across the shore

A broken ship’s bones break the sullen wave

A lost dream is for a moment seen

A torn heart falls to the sea foam

A promise torn from a book of lies

A picture of the wise fool flutters

A banner proclaiming false hope

A tired breeze shakes through the litter

A darkness fills the heart of

A people who once saw 

A broken person as

A chance to help

A lie here, a sad whisper and all they see

A burden, a competitor

A foreigner, a different dreamer

A thing not a brother or sister in need

Where the word of hope, 

Where the prophet of joy,  

Where the lord of men

Where the teacher of truth, 

Where the priest of love

Where the carrier of light,  

Where the healer of pain

Where the restorer of the broken

There are some holy places

What makes a holy place ?

Is it a church  or or a mosque ?

Is it an ancient tomb of our far distant ancestors?

Is it a special wild place - a sacred grove or quiet cove

There is one place that has all this

I know an island,  rich in farmland,

but where the bones of the earth  show through.

Here and there are the stones raised up

This for a reason we don't know,

These are a burial chamber for an ancient community

These for the great King

These make a village from when Claudius was emperor

These make a church  made by Padrig

and these one for Tyslio

and these make a Ty Ddu

These fold and twist to make beds for the seals

these washed smooth by the sea trap the waters of the lagoon

These old and strange, still hidden,

supports love's island,   these make the lighthouse.

Here the stone is crushed and washed  into a sandy cove,

Here the great shifting sands are trapped beneath Marram and Pine

and somehow hold rich lakes

Here the risen stones  enclose the holy spring

and the monks church

Here the still resting  rock make the cliffs for

Bran Coesgoch to dance over in summer and shelter

on the greensward for winter

Here the stones were ripped from the

earth, torn, broken. destroyed, burnt  for the metal, the colour of my nieces hair

other colours still stain the great pit  and the dead ponds still squarely

lie at the foot of the hill

This is a Holy place, this is a sacred home,

a place that gives sustenance to many

a place that hold magic spaces

a place that shelters its people

a place that ordinary lives are lived in

Summer

Soft languorous heat builds,

Each breath of the day seems hotter

Each tender touch of the air brings a momentary

Illusion of respite

The green valley seethes in the sun

And still stays green

Water runs still in the many little rills and becks

The air carries so much still

Even the birds fly slowly 

Silence grows over the valley

I look for the lizards on the baking stones

But it was too cold yesterday and will be tomorrow

Pale shadows drift over the hay stripped meadows

When the true clouds come

Will they rage with all this water?

All this heat, will the sky crack open  ?

Shall we dance in the rain?

Shall the coolness return ?

Shall the stone crack ?

Shall the sky turn black ?

Will the slugs and snails dance? 

Will the birds hide ?

Will deer run under the trees?

Will the water run off the ducks backs?

A red admiral drifts as high as my window

Celebrating the warmth

Joyous as the clouds grow

In the blue sky

The heat remained