Ferbane,
not turning
dry and brittle
in old age
but more moist, more fecund
more porous, more mysterious:
your sponges oozing
womb-matter
haggishly,
in perpetuity.
–
Bog, body.
To be hailed
loved
exalted and
to be
left,
respectfully,
undisturbed,
with the wink
of crow cry
and dew,
quite
the hell
alone.
A squeeze of the hand
and then I was off, alone,
entering my cathedral:
arches of gold vermilion
crowning my gaze,
the mud underfoot, dark,
littered with
leaves who had rejoiced
their decline,
drifting, falling
to become food for the worms.
I placed
my raging head
against the brow
of a veined and shimmering
birch, whispering
greetings and thanks
in gasps of relief.
No one but me
and the breath of trees and
a squirrel gathering sweetly,
a magpie or two
like flashes,
shots of blue and black in the
corners of my vision,
with the others
more-than-human.
I smelt the sweetness
of exalting life and decay,
a scent that
I used to bathe in
under purpling childhood skies,
but that feels more
remote to me now.
I breathed in the past,
I breathed in homecoming.
The path winds and splits
and reunites.
And although I stepped gently onwards
I began to care not that
my feet would become dirty,
feeling, sensing
the pad of paws always
following, leading me
Upon receiving good news
Push through the gate
that hissed through its teeth at you
to turn back,
damming rivulets of paths
that are your birth right.
*
Bronzing mushrooms
chuckle as you pass;
twigs,
dried, collected, yellowing
like bones, crunch under your feet,
whilst the trees
maintain a lusty languor,
residing and bathing
in fresh dew.
*
Touch the bluestones
where lichen blossoms,
crafting a moonscape;
cradling moss
caress their rocks with fecundity:
ancient rotting restless renewing love.
*
Paw at the listening silence,
corpulent,
penetrated only by
the gentle coo
of two unseen birds
in soft dialogue.
*
I pause, standing still.
I lick the salt from my upper lip:
it tastes like my name;
it tastes like victory.
Photograph of Tŷ Canol wood taken by Colin Harper
Ruth reflected
that we are flowers;
as time passes
we bud, we bloom
only to contract
and bud then bloom
once more –
I feel so grabbed
by big dusty hands
that clench, yank
when I am fatigued,
yearning for response:
a cushion beneath
my head,
a break in the
heat,
words whispered
softly.
*
A blackbird
flew into my
window this morning;
distracted,
misinterpreting
my sterile light
for hers: a
false promise
or maybe she is
just so tired.
She huddled under
a tree, sheltered by
thin foliage
and waited, paused,
shuddering
camouflaged by
compassionate shrubby green.
I pressed my palms together
And through the glass
I wished, I whispered:
‘I love you’
‘I love you’
‘I love you’.
In my mind’s eye
scooping up
her feathered body,
tending to her,
calming her,
before releasing her
to the moon and clouds.
The sky is
rent;
bruised
black and purple
against summer’s alabaster.
My heart
too;
my dreams
show me
in excellence,
excellence
that feels
unfounded:
the exam,
passed extraordinary;
the physical attraction
and animalism
I possess,
that of a star orbited
and yet
I look in a
ghostly mirror
and see my old
own known face.
Pale, my
hair scraped back and dark,
my lips painted
ruby red
in mockery.
How sad,
that my dream distinction
feels like
an alienation,
unnatural,
impossible.
But, I balked
at darkness
too:
hardly daring
to tread in
the forest
of pitch black;
hardly daring
to follow his
gaze to the
turtle,
bobbing, diving
in the currents
of an irrepressible stream;
too afraid
lest I lose my footing
and topple
into the deep.
There isn’t much to say.
There isn’t much to do
between the pendulum-swing
of witchcraft and watercolour.
Tending to our plot
dipping our toes
into the rhythms and melodies
honeyed by memory.
*
Other sweetnesses have been
gardened: mowing, planting
with friends and the bees;
the snails communing in the weeds;
travelling and trusting to the hedgerows of hawthorn,
custodians running and guarding the roads
in a wash of white, with
sprinkled cow parsley waving nearby.
*
Dancing under the yellowing light
of a half-moon waxing with radiance
before rooting into vegetables, trellis and earth;
toasting to rites and riots whilst
casting feathered petals to the wind in future’s honour
my ankles and thighs deep in
shadowy waters of black salmon:
I am careful as I continue to tread softly in blind faith.
‘Three white butterflies to know you’re near…’
‘Grandfather please stand on the shoulders of my father while he’s deep-sea fishing’ – Lana Del Rey, Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd (2023)
I try to
smile sweetly
at April,
but my teeth
hurt.
I force myself
to consider
the miracle
of primroses
that scatter
the churchyard
wantonly;
but I hanker
for the crows
and their inky capes.
I grab T.S Eliot
in the morning;
pick my skin;
mangle my words;
then accidently
smashed the
almond blossoms
on the floor and
cried.
A month begins
with the
interplay
of shadow and darkness
under relentless
grey; the new
Del Rey album
knows.
I asked to
see, hear and know;
all I received
was the same old puppet
show and I
feel all the
ways I don’t
live up to the sun.
Today, I keep it small:
there’s nothing
much to do
except to give thanks
that I have a plot
safe enough
soft enough
to wait this out;
let woundedness have her moment,
her head between her paws,
her sighs reverberating
off the wardrobe;
compassion whispering reminders
through the blinds,
of the hallowed blue sky
as the wheel
it turns, it turns.
*
Then,
there we were
singing
‘Under the Bridge’
in murmured
unison.
Magnolia! Magnolia!
And our laughter
recalled the
sunbeams.
We sat down
to breakfast
on beans and eggs
and I gazed
at the blue
sky, shyly
peeping
through tendrils
and coverlets
of grey.
I thought of the
sweetness of
slow, cold,
void-full
January,
and how
she is
time-dishonoured.
The tentative and loving
bite in her beauty
and patience is
lost
when we
are forced
to rise in
the darkness,
beating our
way though the
shadows and furies
when our bodies,
our souls
ache to awaken
with her.
No wonder
we struggle,
when the
rhythms of
cogs are
venerated, ghosts
of deeper
more sacred
practice,
woefully ignored,
rendering us
ghosts in our
turn.
So I do only
that which is needed,
to suit the
naked limbs
of the trees.
I allow poetry to
pull me
down slowly,
kindly and
passionately
and –
of course! –
there is so much
lusciousness
in January.
She was never
barren,
her darkness
prismatic,
her kisses sent
in hellebore.
With huge love and gratitude to Nikki McKinney at The Bell Jar Flowers for her generous permission to use this photograph as the featured image for this poem. Nikki arranged, designed and provided flowers for my wedding and I never realised how much I cared about these beautiful creations until I met her. She is a true artist. Her work can be found at https://www.thebelljarflowers.co.uk/
‘My life has been the poem I would have writ,
But I could not both live and utter it’
Henry James Thoreau
And I cried
in the kitchen,
for Beauty’s beyond
me.
I know it
should not
matter
but it
does.
That when
I write and
dance and sing
and feel
that I am
being shut
out of realms
of divinity:
the glassy plains
of the transcendent.
I am Earth-bound,
with a soul
that yearns
to unite with airy loftiness
but stumbles
and mumbles
in the clunk
and failure,
whilst other
gossamer souls
soar and delve
mining and mirroring
the riches of
abundant plenty.
*
He held me
and looked me
straight in the eye.
I realised
that my
art is in
my living:
the bounding
of my heart;
the alchemy
of my emotions;
the boundaries
of my bones;
the glory of
my joyous, shining
belief in the
brilliance and radiance
of connection.
My laughter.
My fury.
My dreams.
My choices.
My desires.
A living breathing
Mythology.
I may not
leave behind
masterpieces,
as I fumble and float forward,
but maybe even
simply
the attempt
is something mythic
something magic
something uncontained.
Lime, olive
cedar
breath
when will
goodbye
not be tinged
with the forlorn?
It rumbles
like the rocks
and pebbles
as I left
the Lake for the
last time
this time
every footstep
a grinding
presence,
a remembrance,
no hope
of leaving
unconsciously.
We are leaving
the Timeless;
the seagull
on the
telegraph pole
sat in meditation
only moving
to stretch;
the recline
of lounging
so often denied
as books,
music, podcasts,
birdsong
and mountain view
incorporate
into rest.
Tomorrow
will be back to
trains,
timetables,
schedules
but for today
you rubbed suncream
into my back;
we drank beer;
laughed;
revelled in
and repelled the
future,
as I cried
tears I didn’t
know I had
into your shoulder.
You helped me down
the stairs,
we talked about
the moon and the
stars,
we kissed
wet kisses
in the shower
and the marble
floor
greeted our reflections
beaming
burnt
brilliant.
Wednesday 3rd August 2022
Harping On 