The conspiracy of ivy

By the field's edge we grew
Long time undisturbed
Edged by ploughing
Observed the breaking clods
Long time looked over
A distant edged distance
Watched the sowing
The reaping
The ploughing
The sowing
And all the time
About our trunks
Grew a deeper green
Than we'd ever seen
Creeping up
Stealthily,
Slowly,
Slowly,
Suffocating.

.

Poem VII from the collection
An ear to the earth

.

A butterfly alights on a leaf

Why do you copy in our dead colours
When we struggle so hard for life
Even last year's leaves still wave and rattle
Yes, even we saw the winter through.

How easily you melt into our surroundings
Sunning your wings just long enough
To alert us here of the dangers there...
Just the thought of it now makes us all shudder.

from An ear to the earth
VI

The waking sensations of brackens and long grasses

Gaps appear when dark descends,
When the nighly sun is up,
Pushed between up brackens and long grasses.

Tramping on, me
Snuffling for seeds and berries.

We sleep soundly, undisturbed.
We rise up from earthly-dark earth
And simply unfurl each frond.

Sometimes a marking passing
Remains, me scenting soft earth.

Undisturbed, but for waking sensations
Of a not-seen having brushed against
Our stalks, caressingly.

.

from An ear to the earth III

The Vision of the Oak

Listen
A measureless time the deepest of visions came to me
When all human voices rested in sleep
It seemed I beheld the mystery of the Wood.
It was a marvel touched with rays of golden light
Shining like jewels stretching to the four corners of the forest
Radiating throughout eternity. I observed it
Saw the fiery glow in the glory tree.
It ran through all creation a beacon of splendour
A magnificent, perfect light. And through that radiance
I was able to witness when it first began.

And as I began to grow there
The most ancient of ancient trees began to speak.
'It was long ago but still I remember
My roots at the forest's edge.
I too saw the world's edge the light of the world
Throwing out rays of perfect light
Before the sky darkened and the Earth was once again
Cast in shadow veiled under clouds.
I witnessed it all.'

Vision, strength of my oaken heart deliver this message
That my soul is urging me upwards
I hardly dare move. Gradually my solitude is relieved
But still I have to endure the sensation of longing.
The time will come for me to honour
The whole glorious creation from the canopy above
To the ground below worshiping this beacon
More than all other trees. My life's hope
Is to seek out that triumphant Wood
And become that most glorious of ancient trees.


.

Tall nettles

Tall nettles

All day long we've languished in our place,
Since we like the same view from here,
Growing in clumps, sending out shoots

The earth accommodates us all, we have space.
We are not as bitter as our yellow-headed companions,
Who vanish in a whisper, no, we remain.

As the sun sways towards the day's end
The shade offers some respite
But too soon, we cry, too soon!

We have strength in numbness
Colonizing spaces that are hostile and hard
And by remaining, know our place.

.

Taken from the collection
An ear to the earth
XIII

Blossom

Blossom

Brightly coloured buds are breaking out
On the magnolia like an eruption
Of blistering sores. A gentle breeze
Peels back the writhing petals

Tearing open the maroon wound within.
Their agonizing cries go unheard
As we pause, admiringly, at
The suddenness of Spring.

.

Thoughts of an acorn upon waking in Spring

The breathing wind
Ripples the moist air
And ruffles leaf's smothering covering.
We stir us from under cold slumber
To warm our backs,
Face down in earth's ochre. Alone

I carry me a weighty ancestry
Yet all that is known is still my unknown.
Is it my own turn now?
Am I ready yet?
Am I?
Ready.



Taken from the collection
An ear to the earth
IV

.