An apple anticipates an afterlife

XIV


We cannot account for our arrival
Such mysteries lie buried in
Between the lines drawn out
In the field’s arable acreage.
Resting in stillness,
Warm repose, warming to touch
Our sensitive hearts. Our vital instinct
Is strong, it means our survival,
Yet when we asked we were simply told
‘It is just so.’ And so it is.
There is, however, something we all share
Of that we are aware, at least.

We have seen the seasons turn
We have seen the foliage unfurl,
Unravel and return.
We have felt the sway and the pull
That touches us all.
We have felt the swelling
That bends the bower with our weight,
Feeling out on a limb we wait and wait
Growing evermore desirable.
What is it we feed upon to make us thus?
And when the furs and feathers feast on us
Is it then that we loose ourselves to oblivion?

Of the one that is me, I yield.
I yield forsaking my others.
I yield to the ache that comes with age
Assuaged only in a moment of weightlessness.
For this, I yield.
The grasses are waving.
The horizon is approaching.
All is as it should be.
For the one that is me
Departure marks a new beginning.

CHALK - a meditation on place and identity

1.

It fits well in my hand
Lacking sharp edges
It is warm and dry, holding the heat of the earth
As I turn it around it becomes smoother
Leaving traces of a fine, white powder
That fills the lines in my hand
The life line
the head line
the heart line


2.

This piece of chalk has no grain
I cannot tell how it lay in the ground
How it was built up layer by layer of once living organisms.
Creatures imprinted with a memory
Of a time passing through the Cretaceous period
A time of hills and mountains rising from seas
Ending with extinction.


3.

A fragment of chalk
Gathered from the eye of the White Horse at Uffington
Gathered from an eye which has for centuries
Stared up into a revolving sky
Your lithe, sinewy form I have heard you galloping
Your hooves hammering the Downs, foal of Lascaux
I have stood with the Long Man
High upon the hill's ridge
And surveyed the forested domain on the lower levels
Where the deeper soil allows trees
To get a root hold and establish themselves
I have stood with poles in hand
Finding an alignment between the point left
And the place yet to be reached
I have pitched my tent in the hidden hollows
In the valleys, in the dense, broad leaf woodland
And woken at night to the sound of the sea
Welling up from deep underground
The wind cuts my boat adrift
As waves crash through the trees overhead


4.

In a field somewhere a fossil has been found
Fragments of flint, an arrowhead, a line kiln
Excavated on these undulating hills
Where settlements were founded, industries forged
Stone age
Bronze age
Iron age
How far it has traveled
That it should now come to rest in my palm as my inheritance


5.

Each time I walked upon the Downs
I left a layer of memory and identity
Embedded in the chalk.
Scumble the surface of the Downs
And find it through gaps in the scrubby grass
It lies close to the surface there.


6.

I turn this fragment around in my hand
It reaches the tips of my fingers
And the tip of the chalk touches the ground.
I make a mark, a line that will link the meridian points
Of my own history like a constellation of stars


7.

I am standing in a field
Surveying the space around this
Point where my feet are taking root
The plough has drawn deep lines
Musical staves through the earth
But has not revealed the presence of chalk
It has no place in this field,
In the formation of this geology.
This piece of chalk I brought here
It gleams against the up turned top soil
And finds its place
The outline acquires form
Pigment of ochres and earthen stains
Add a richness of colour
The earth regenerates itself and absorbs
All that is discarded
Its scent is the scent of decay, but a decay
That nourishes growth and inspired
A faith and a belief in the industry of soil.
I will draw a line in the earth
And here I will dig, and dig deeply
Deep down through its many layers.


9th December 2008

A Canterbury Tale (epiphany)

The Stones of Dalmatia

The stones of Dalmatia

Rest a while, traveller,
And observe these stones

Interlocking, convoluted shapes. Curves, convex and concave.
Holed by the constant course of an underground water source.
Wedded to age , sunbaked, parched, chiselled by the wind
And richly patinated to a sculptured grey whiteness
Seeming as lifeless as a cairne

These stones are the measurement by which this land is divided,
And enclosed. Here fields were cleared and walls were raised up.
Within these enclosures fields produced the first rich harvest
Of stones, before the vines could cling to the thin soil
And bear fruit. All abandoned now.

Who remembers the labour of the field
Who can remember hearing the chime of the mattock
Striking stone.

Stone,
Millenii spent in a slow state of restless turmoil.
Originating deep in the cradle of the liquid earth.
In our lifetime we have witnessed that final push that lifts
Them from the soil's grip. Stones take on another life
In our hands but what do stones care for our intention.

We have a rhythm and a pulse
A skilled hand selected, placed
And replaced each piece to find
The point where the polarities

Are aligned. Where two stones
Touched there the pulse vibrated
Across the void and we became
One entity, again.

These rocks, raw material, the building blocks of cities and
Monuments, these living stones that enable us to reach out
And touch the hand of our ancestry are here all distilled
Into this intimate shelter,
A sanctuary

HOUSE, a poem for two voices

HOUSE


It must have been a meter high, at least
The grass, the hedge lost in front of the house
Through which we pushed
To reach the door
And this is home.
On either side the plaster cracked
Exposed a sight not seen
For nearly 50 years of
Bricks and stones stacked one
Upon another with my bare hands, plaster rendered.
Hollows in the field where I pulled out stones
I filled with trees and more trees putting down roots
Wondering if I should see many to maturity.
Trees which have been neglected
Now need pruning or removing
Since their yield has been
Exhausted as I was stacking bricks on stones
Day in, day out to build my house, my home.
Well cut some down and plant others.
Well rebuild walls using his tools
The axe, the shovel, the saw.
I built walls and planted my orchard.
Four years since they fell into disuse
For years since I left the fruit upon the branch
The grapes on the vine simply wither and fall.
Are not to our taste,
But well keep the old apple
Propped up with branches and magical
Under which we pass still fruits, miraculously,
Finding our way through the orchard
Entering another world
Following a well - worn trail
Quietly, through the orchard
Down to the spring.
Down to the waters source.

How the sea appeared to the stones

All stones hum,
Some deeper than others
Sunk deep in the earth under us.

We keep an ear to the earth
And listen to the stones,
Cradling them with our roots.

The stones have stories too;
Stories of seas,
Of seas leaving

And leaving land, seas
Like windy grasses
Waving in fallow fields

Like big skies
Lying under big skies
Above.

The leaves are reaching up
Into big sky above.
We want to know

Tell us, tell us all you see,
Is there, anywhere
Big sky below?

from An ear to the earth II

Of what we vines are most afraid

Tendrils twisting up limbless trees,
Our season's growth holds on to
Our dead, expressionless companions,
Rootless, yet sturdy,
Pushed deep into the soil.
Who knows of their silent aspirations
To spread a branch, some leaves?
Carrying our fruiting lineage
We emulate their staked-out intervals
And cling for support, since we need you.

Do you look upon us with envy?
Our leaves cast great shadows
That our companions could only dream of.
Reaching out along a trail
We've spent years mastering.
Contorting our trunks into shapes
That are not straight or rigid
But as if to say, ''We're alive, we're alive
Admire the fruits of our labour''

It consumes all our strength
To divulge this wisdom
And each year we are cut back to conserve our energy.
Each year is our new beginning
Until one year we shall be cut back completely
When we are no longer yielding
And become, like you,
Unyielding.


from An ear to the earth, V