“. . . putting it in writing”   Nehemiah 10:1

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  Heathen

Whilst crossing night’s heath on an ancient ley road,
I encountered a heathen pricked out in blue woad;
Her lithe naked body was clothed in raised lines,
Forming circles, spirals, geometric designs.

Signs in the Heavens and the Rivers beneath,
The meandering contours of that lonely heath:
All shimmered and rippled across her dark skin,
Charting wayward, wand’ring, aboriginal sin.

Going ever before me throughout the dreich day;
In the drizzle and dankness where dark mists hold sway:
The deep veils were parted by this swarthy wight,
Bringing sunshine, vision, ineluctable light.

Sodden ash swiddens, the morass of wet moss,
Turned to sweet honey heathers and soft swards of grass;
The doleful dew droplets by her danced away,
Into rainbows, radiance, scintillating display.

Great gushing gullies, with fast falls in full flood,
Flushed of force, falling into mere murmuring mood;
Where torrents were teeming, their tempest she’d still,
Into trickles, ripples, and exhilarant rill.

Broad banks of bracken, all broken and bruised
By the wind and the weather: by all else refused;
By her step, by her pace, she pressed to soft lawn,
Weaving green ways, dream ways...
to the ploughed earth of dawn.

Signs in the Heavens, all the Rivers below,
Are but Sighs to the Rhythm of that Heathen now;
The lines of her body and the lay of her soul,
Are my locus, and focus: my lost way; my whole.

  Anni-Versaries

The gallant Sallow’s proud to show,
Grey catkins on each upthrust bough,
While silently ’neath shrouds of snow;
Less favoured Willows humbly bow,
For though in vigour grows the sun,
And warmer weather is now due,
The winter battle is not won -
The sudden blizzard’s forecast, too.
Oh! January ever is,
Treacherously duplicitous.

In February, so the old wives say,
(But only on St Valentine’s Day),
Each songbird does select anew,
One mate to whom it will stay true;
But younger wives with fewer words,
Assume that’s strictly for the birds,
And by numerous covert signs,
Encourage sev’ral Valentines.

Marching over hill and dale;
Marching over fell and vale;
And over down; And over dell:
Some day they’ll March o’er Heav’n and Hell!
O Lord, in March, an’ if Thou Will,
Please spare me from the Daffodil!

With gusting winds and squalling shower,
The weather changes by the hour;
No chance this month of standing still,
It’s ‘dash for shelter’ all April.

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah for May!
Hurrah for the Red, White and Blue!
Hurrah for the blossom and bells, I say!
Hurrah for the insect hum all day,
For the tumbling, turning stoat at play,
And the high Summer Sun that’s here to stay;
For the Sweep of the Swallow, the Flash of the Jay:
Hurrah for the call of Cuckoo!

Dusty June, as always, seems just green,
In fields and forests and ‘roadside reserves’;
Gone are the colours of Spring: just seen
Are the stringy white weeds June deserves.

How marvellous in mid-July:
The swaying foxgloves, six feet high;
But not so wonderful at all:
The blasted bracken’s just as tall!

August blows hot and then blows cold,
With drizzle and mists and damp and mould;
Days of thunder and torrents depress,
Will it rain or shine? That’s anyone’s guess!

September’s Indian Summer sweats,
From every insect itching pore;
Only the dark ripe dripping Elder lets
Us know that autumn is in store.

October’s sun though always low,
Yet bathes the land in golden glow;
And from the trees a golden snow
Falls gently, ’til the sly wind lifts
It, sweeping it to crackling drifts,
Which, slowly, as the season shifts,
Settle down to brown leaf mould,
Which quickly turns to mud as sharp cold
Sleet signals that the year is old.
The sun? And leaf? Just memories....

November never does surprise,
As fogs descend and frosts arise;
And all around the country, Guys
Ascend in pagan sacrifice.

December ends in huddled cold too bleak for easy word,
Days slowly pass with neither sight nor sound of any bird;
An enervated sun clings briefly to a brittle bough,
Then settles to oblivion. The year is over now.

  Said The Poet...

Said the poet to the novelist:
This maxim be true -
Why write many scores of words,
When a just one will do?

To the poet, spake the novelist:
Though one might suffice,
My books must have lots of words,
To justify the
  cost of
  publishing,
  printing,
  binding,
  advertising,
  transport,
  wholesale,
  retail,
  and, of course,
    my slice!