Found
a seagull’s quill to write the marsh
a shell to listen for its tune
a pair of wings to fly far away
rushes to weave salty baskets
black clay to to build my boat
stones underwater to play music on
sea thrift to save memories
sea wormwood to heal with bitter brew
blue quicksilver for mind’s voyage
streams at low water to swim thoughts in
a high wide sky to tell true secrets to
curlews to sing my song
Lost
which bird’s feather?
blown up to the plum blue sky
faded now
this transparent morning
the bird is looking the feather’s gone
the swan’s great feather from her wing
I found on the tideline
dirty white
could be the one lost feather I hold up
for the moon’s light
the swan lost it long ago the fisherman
left his line to wind around her throat
and the lead to tangle in her gut
she floats in the water at the Southern Cross
under the Milky Way
all the stars on the sky’s gibbet
are feathers scattered like snow
the small fawn curled ones
with squared off ends dipped in chocolate
from the partridge’s breast I keep in a cup
on my bookshelf tiger stripe sparrow hawk
green metallic silk of rook
are in the slipware jar one shelf up
rain falls straight and heavy
in the street outside my open windows
the blackbird softly chucks and all the lost feathers of the world
like fish spines in the earth lose their barbs and barbules
their keratin melts back into soil
rain runs down the grey glazed tiles
and extinguishes the stars
To the Headland
We crouch here in the ditch slate smudge turns
to dark grey comes quickly on
blue Lundy dizzying cliff winged in storm haze
under the wall where the vision seems the brightest or the darkest
if you fall from this height only the angels can catch you
become a bird let go fall in your mind for joy
be the winged saint the great feathered cherubim
terrify the people with your iron wings you stand
open on the hillside your rusty brow sees afar
the flicker of lightning the storm’s arms are yours
this is your headland dream it comes
fast again
if you are grounded you can walk
there into the murk the final wakening
watch for the quickening it will not fail
in the wind the hill will hold you up the waves
stay below very small
feathers of gold of bronze of copper shine
in the sun beat slow like an eagle you see
islands harbours coastlines clear to the western sea
there are tiny ships far away
you find them and you toss hauling winch
on the trawler in grey hills of salt water
follow sheep on the hillside drive kids to school
stack dirty plates draw pints slice onions
fill ovens deliver the post lay bricks
walk home again wings furled
Four Fields
Field one the Hangs 11.30 am 19th October
on the crest
green lines of winter wheat pricking through
shimmer of flints in the rain
jackdaws and rooks calling
showers gusting across
drilled lines swooping down to the hedge
the beech tree that grows away from the sea
Field two the Hangs 11.45 am 19th October
green ley with dark redpolls grazing
under moraine hills
heath brown with bracken
along the hedge all the seed heads nodding –
knapweed, cow parsley, hogweed –
looping brambles
bowing in the wind
grey sea very rough with white horses
breakers exploding behind the shingle ridge
Field three Old Woman’s Lane
12.10 pm 19th October
eating blackberries
young rape plants
bisected by grassy track,
leading down to allotment huts
over all the electricity wires
moaning in the wind
round sun through cloud
wild hedge full of haws
Field four Old Woman’s Lane
12.25 pm 19th October
running the hedge down
to white-flecked sea
lines of autumn barley following
a criss-cross of cats’ cradle wires
poles standing
puddled ruts earth softened by rain
alexanders coming up
double-drilled drawing of green
diamonds
old man’s beard in the hedge
an empty can
Rubicon Sparkling Mango
A Speculation of Hares (Published in The Rialto no 84)
And the hare, because he chews the cud but does not divide the hoof, he is unclean to you. (Leviticus 11:6)
the hare’s ears are like gloved fingers gesturing/they beckon
like chestnut leaves black-tipped furry/listen to her huge heart
flippy arrogant tall magical sensitive/at the vernal equinox
as long as a blade of summer grass/being embodied alive
a stalk of wheat a sheaf of hay/persisting in being
she crouches in the headland/on the edge between wood and field
her path is made it is customary/under the sky’s roof
she makes her practised escape/she’ll eat the little saplings and the beet seedlings
returns to her home ground/she’s a feast for gentry folk
her name is forbidden amongst fishermen/she is delicious with onions
she is a night creature and signifies a full moon/the one who makes you shudder
she is not a native she has cunning/she doesn’t go straight home
can see behind her knows how fast to run/the one it’s bad luck to meet
she hides her children in plain sight/she takes refuge with the lambs
her form in the open ground/meet her in the evening and you will meet a queen
Doubtful Land (a version of this published in The Rialto no 84)
susceptible to flood interchangeable terminal
LAND
porous
grey rippled reed reflections
in the sky’s eye satin blue to dark blue-grey
the church tower appears
over Arnold’s marsh
SALTY FRESH
reserved
saline crescent pools reflecting
the day sky now pure deep blue
some cirrus building on the west wind
tufts of grey down break away and fly towards me
sluices scoured away
SEA
broken
a new lower ridge pushed up
shadow line the low south sun
casts along the bank
on the seaward side
line of the horizon flat cloud above it
invaders
above and below the lines and banks
the sea a moving surface of little hillocks
froth and translucence tiny wavelets turning over
the repeated lines a line of seaweed further up
wind farm horizon shingle ridge
SKY
militarised
machines of the air
their enormous sound in the echoing blue
pressing down
crawling along the slipping stones
exposed to this piercing light
that points to Bakeney’s spit to Weybourne’s cliff
TURN BACK
on the causeway
sea of reed beds North sea
Lark at Salthouse October 2016
his singing ticks him up to the top of the airy place
the apex
flung to catch the sea
the church
the heath
the hill
he
pumps out his triumphant threat all he sees and sings of and claims
as his own the stripes of field the tractor and the trees of Walsey Hills
the bracken and the gorse the weeds the barley stubble sings
of the dark cloud the falling rain out to sea the white blades turning
his air his cloud his sun he climbs high for sustenance for light
for home
spread beneath him
the insects
the nesting places
the open land
he rules it
he
continues like the land he is part of it his song twisting and thrumming in his
throat he keeps it turning keeps the seasons coming in the wind’s pocket
at the top of the hill he has the connection he’s the revenant the constant angel
the presence of a god
The Woodwife (published in Strix, Leeds, no 1)
Scolopax rusticana (woodcock)
The woodwife’s duties are:
to probe the undercurrents of her life/to feel under the leaf mould with her long beak
to keep her high round eyes open for the strange and the uncanny/to keep low and look out above
to know her eggs and to hatch them/to hear the egg-teeth breaking out
to let her children tell her secrets/to be a cloud in the night
to show the most love/to escape the guns and dogs, the fox and the badger
to shine a bright moon lamp on the numinous/to row the dark with her wings
to be an indistinct radiance from inside the wood/to let her knowledge sink under the trees
Quantum Properties of Pink-Foot Geese (published in The Rialto no 84)
Anser brachyrhynchus
Do the geese still call, that used to fill the sky/the strongest bird first
do their lines still wander, and spill the wind to land/the most experienced second
as when I was woman live?/families separate elements in the greater skein
under the horizon, downwind they spire/first I hear their honking clarinets
deep keeled wing-strong from Iceland/like little arial dogs yap yap squeak squeak
darkest clouds turn into dotted geese lacing up the sky/tumbling into the beet field
goosey-goosey gander/cryptochrome in their eyes makes the earth’s magnetic field visible
father, mother, brother, sister goose/discoursing the course, making new connections
he goosed her, little goose/to change course requires many voices, mid-air decisions
whose beak will pierce the wind?/electrons’ radical pairing, wings oscillate
whither will you wander?/constant readjustment of leadership
vee’d across the weather/quantum entangled, plump flocking streaming slipstream.
The Woodcutter’s Daughter
1
a world of thorns
the air filled with water
out of the leaf mould and the fallen
the rain dropping from the tree
a small disturbance in the nettles
a bramble leaf flips
as if some small bird had just that second flown
or an insect
2
each oak tree pregnant with story
in the corrugations of bark
high branches like arms
holding up the wet sky
lime trees with skirts like queens
a single yellow leaf
helicopters down
WALKERS WELCOME
3
a green bleed of algae flows
from the forked oak’s crotch
you can never see
his face only the axe
he knows the way through the brambles and nettles
the damp pits and the drainage hollows
the swampy ponds
they are long gone
4
crusted aftermath
veined green tributaries
in denser darker places
he comes to the tree he marked
last time it has regrowth around the wound
a wood of sweet chestnuts
the spring of a falling drop
the she-wolf dreams
seventy seven steps (published in Tears in the Fence no 66)
in memory of my mother and of my classics teacher I. M. S. who walked into the sea at Walcott in 1976
i
ten steps between/blackcap warbles and fizzes
counting seventy seven times/cow parsley white drops of rain
to arrive/grassy ride to small meadow
at the Gates of Hades/tender oak twig falls
under hollies sharp dark/powerful scent
snaking bark-less necks /large partially dead oak
the ancient guardian remains/translucent oak leaves
my sybil Julian’s Divine Love/chiffchaff’s song
in the knapsack at my back/nettles docks wren sings
no drums brass choir behind me/oak tassel flower
descending to the broken gate/hawthorns old hedge
rusty iron-work sagging/stitchwort white stars
beyond the portal yawns/ivy on oak trunk
small bats fly past me/ancient oak log sinking
cobwebs spread across/tall oak its feet in bluebells
spiders and dust in my hair/willow warbler imitating chiffchaff
hand on wall I walk down/goose-grass yaffle calls
stone steps wet/brown patterned slug at my feet
and riven/patter of drops blown off leaves above
faint light from below/burr-oak thickened trunk
I hold a branch of may/meadow saxifrage
to cross this river Lethe/sea of bramble shoots
not water but song/bluebells thick under oak
intertwines time sound dark matter/pheasant alarm
invisible choir/dead branch almost buried
from a new dimension/
ii
a boat made of reeds that whisper/large oaks one dead
I step in no ferryman/branches tangle
pulls me along with gentle sway/new leaves shine
all song dies away and the reed-bed/raindrops
summons me bowing/dandelion flowers
her tall watery form rises/in the open
she speaks Virgil’s latin words /two bluebells
as at school when I was young/new bracken fronds
of Aeneas and his father Anchises/large oak tree
the golden bough/black white trunks silver birch grove
with melodious singing voice/lark above
more inspiring than she ever knew/roebuck
the wound is open and peopled now/scots pine
they come to greet me/low branching oak
dimly seen at first/brambles bracken thicket
soon/silver birch arm in arm with honeysuckle
my mother finds me/may tree a plume of leaves
eyes alight with love /rain encrusted sheet of bluebells
woken from that twilight/hawthorn tree’s tall dome
my hands find no purchase/scent of bluebells
our voices join/grass stamens on filaments
we spend a day and night/jackdaw chuck call
talking laughing renewing/scots pine whiskered tufts
this side of time/nettles in grass chiffchaff sings
there are old friends here women/molehills dock plants
who helped me/ride of blue leading into the wood
become myself/
iii
my grandmothers/chiffchaff wavy flight across
all the dear figures/curly-headed oak tree
of childhood and youth/hedge/edge/brambles
one gallops bareback/black caps singing
those writers I read/bugle faded violet in the grass
and tried to emulate/bracken fronds unfurling
behind them ancestors/mop-headed hawthorn
trailing crowds/dead oak with flowering hawthorn
all the women who/tall brackens branching
fought for suffrage and our rights/wild strawberry flowers
raised their daughters to be/may tree dot buds
what they should be and more/path through bracken
scientists writers doctors/ivy crowded trees
artists makers linguists/hollies further in
mothers – and now my time is ended/dog rose climbs
I leave/pale green views through pattern of branches
honoured amid sad farewells/foxglove young leaves
turn away in tears/bank of dead bracken
to find myself again/garden warbler sings
leaden feet/young rowan struggling through hawthorn
take me/chimes of heavy machinery backing
find ten steps ten lines/blackbird in the distance
climb stairs to the light/hollies at Hades’ Gate
through the horizon of life/rain sky bears down
“Iaque ubi tendentem adversum per gramina vidit
Aenean, alacris palmas ultrasque tetendit:
effusaeque genis lacrimae”
(his father) when Aeneas on the plain appears
meets him with open arms, and falling tears
from Virgil’s Aenead book six