south horizon

Tags

1959, 1967, 1979, 1993, 1999, 2011, 2012, 7*, abandonment, anger, Bowie, childhood, Dad, discovery, divorce, drum, evening, experience, horizon, light, London, Margaret Thatcher, memory, Mum, Nan, pain, parents, perspective, purple, rhythm, river, saxophone, shift, Shooters Hill, south, texture, Thames, travelling, words, world

                south horizon

                out on the river
                the purple is shifting

                but in the evening-bulb light
                the world-shaping words

                of grown ups
                is shifting uncontrollably

                but,          no; it’s OK          look
                there is rhythm, there is

                a saxophone, a hi-hat – shflpt –
                in the crack there

                where words sift
                where worlds shift

 

I submitted this to an online magazine; they didn’t want it; I’ll publish it here again with the copy that supported it:

about the poem: on my eighth birthday (in 1967) my Dad arrived home late from work; my parents had one of their last arguments; my Dad left home that night; I couldn’t remember much of what happened that night – what was said, how much I heard, how much I understood – but I realised that worlds could change quite quickly that night; years later, in 1993, David Bowie recorded ‘south horizon’ on his ‘Buddha of Suburbia’ album, but I didn’t really get to know the piece until 2011; hearing it etched that experience back into my memory – bevelled it up, almost – but it also supplied textures and chord changes to the memory that allowed me a perspective that held me from being just angry or hurt; (‘the river’ is the river Thames; we lived on Shooters Hill in SE London from where we could hear and breathe the river)

author bio: Mark Redford was born in 1959 and grew up in South East London until he bolted to university (like a bat out of hell) in 1979, hot from Margaret Thatcher’s election victory; London was never the same every time he returned back; his mother, who had brought him up with her mother (his Grandmother), died in 1999; since then he has travelled back to London frequently to find the previous 40 years, but only seems to find them when he writes down what he saw; you can see what he sees (possibly better than he can) at: https://mlewisredford.wordpress.com/; if you bump into him there, give him some directions would you?

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

abandonment wormhole: monument to vainglory
Bowie wormhole: new-found love – poewieview #36
childhood & Thames wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams
Dad & divorce wormhole: beepbeep
evening wormhole: alighted
horozon wormhole: 1966
light wormhole: so pleased to see you again
London wormhole: 1967
Mum wormhole: 1967
Nan wormhole: work
purple & river wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
travelling wormhole: traffic lights and broad avenue
words wormhole: breathing out
world wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – agricultural show

 

The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – The Agricultural Show

Tags

1967, August, children, farm, field, hats, June, life, Michael J Redford, people, portrait, the Boats of Vallisneria, walking, weather

The Agricultural Show

Walking for pleasure is one thing, walking because you have to is another, but in between the two comes walking round an agricultural show.   This of course, is purely self-imposed and must surely be classed as walking for pleasure, for the majority who attend do so without thought of executing any business.   Yet the final effect at the end of the day is the same as if one had been ordered on a route march across the Sinai Desert.   With swollen feet and aching backs the hosts disperse towards evening and flop lifelessly into their cars, their faces and neck still sizzling from the heat of the day.   Of course some shows are ill-fated with regard to the weather while others have not known a wet day for perhaps a quarter of a century, but on the whole, the shows fare well, the majority being held between the months of June and August.   This however is rather an unfortunate time to hold a show for it is normally a hectic time of the farm, what with mowing, baling and stacking hay.   It is even more unfortunate if a tractor laden with a couple of tons of hay (and it usually is at times like this) breaks down in the middle of a field, for an urgent call to the local agricultural engineers will receive the reply – “I’m sorry sir, but all the mechanics are at the show.”

Although each being in this world is an individual, the milling mass at an agricultural show can be divided into four main groups and if the truth were known there is to me, as much delight in studying the people as in studying the latest advances in agricultural technology.   (Taking this one stage further, I wonder how often it is I who have been the object of study).

I do not however include in these groups competitors for the equestrian events, for they and their retinues are a species apart and one could devote a sizeable volume to them alone.   Neither do I include the wide-eyed children who dart here, there and everywhere, sucking ice creams and soggy hot dogs, climbing onto tractors and falling into milk churns.   The first of the groups is the ‘immaculate’ group.   It is the bowler-deer-stalker hatted group that walks with militant step and serious face and prods at little pieces of paper with its shooting sticks.   The majority of this group have dangling from their lapels little cardboard discs with ‘Official’, ‘Judge’ or ‘Member’ stamped upon it in gold, and includes the ‘upper crust’, the gentleman farmer and the estate owner.   They wear either a bow tie or a club tie or maybe an old boy’s school tie.

The next group is that of the working farmer.   Here the hats have turned into soft, tweedy trilbies or pork pies.   There is a slight roundness of shoulder and the stride is long and loping.   The gait appears clumsy, yet after years of striding ploughed fields and climbing stacks, most farmers are as sure footed as mountain goats.   A young fourteen year old friend of mine is a supreme example of this.   He can skim across a freshly ploughed field like a hare and still keep pace with someone running on the flat.   Pipes and old walking sticks are the armaments of this group and are used to challenge, prod and probe new machinery or inspect the rows of tethered beasts waiting to enter the show ring.   This group is generally of a suspicious nature, non-committal and not easily swayed by the remarkable time, money and labour saving claims of the mountainous pile of literature thrust eagerly into its hands.   At the entrance to the trade stand beams the host.   He laughs very easily and his handshake is somewhat violent.   “Hello there, wonderful to see you again old boy, come in and have a drink.”   They disappear into the dim world of heaving canvass and creaking ropes.

The group that is always well represented at the shows is that of the farm worker.   He arrives in his best suit, polished boots and cap, his face can be likened to a bake potato and his smile is broader and more frequent than those of the other groups.   Unaccustomed to this mode of dress, it is not long before the tie is removed and the shirt front unbuttoned.   Soon the jacket comes off and is stuffed into the shopping bag containing the day’s ‘wittals’.   Some even go so far as to remove the cap, though why they should have the desire to do so on this particular day is beyond me, for judging from the pure white band on the upper part of their foreheads, the cap is never removed from one year’s end to the other.   He is disgusted at prices in the beer tent, but tolerates this as being one of the prices to be paid for a rare day’s outing with the family.   Old acquaintances are renewed more in this group than in the others, for farm workers move around more than farmers.   Friendly insults are bandied about and a sly drink is attempted before the womenfolk can find them and drag them off to the Women’s Institute tent.

The final group belongs to those whose only connection with country life is an occasional weekend outing in the car.   It consists of those who have farmed only in their dreams or whose children have a strong leaning in that direction.   Although their attire is variable, this group can normally be segregated by their complexions.   Even those who have communed with the elements for a fortnight whilst on holiday do not achieve the deeply ingrained weathering of the farm worker’s face.   It is a purely superficial mask through which the white lines of the brow, furrowed from the unaccustomed glare of the sun, can be detected.   Apart from this there is no strong characteristic linking these people together as a group for they all come from different walks of life.   Perhaps they walk a little faster than most and do not linger long in any one place, but no matter how disconnected this group is within itself, it can claim one thing in common with the rest and that is, a keen interest in farming or some aspect of country life.

On passing through the gates of a country or agricultural show, I invariably make for the little kiosk which sells the catalogues and on the map therein, I religiously trace out a route between the various avenues.   This route is designed to take me round to every trade stand, exhibition and demonstration in the shortest distance, retracing my steps as little as possible.   Having completed this task, an outstanding display a little way up the centre avenue catches my eye, so, thrusting the catalogue into my pocket, I decide to see what it’s all about.   My curiosity satisfied, I am attracted to a large group of people huddled around a mysterious object on display a little further down the line.   By the time I have made the front row, all thoughts of adhering to the route so meticulously worked out, have left me.   This happens every time I attend an agricultural show and I invariably end up by walking ten times as far as is necessary.   But so what?   Most of our lives have too great a proportion of it already ordered for us; there is far too much routine.   What matters it if we do cover the same ground twice?   One can always discover some fresh point of interest that had been passed by first time round.

 

read the collected work as it is published: here

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

field wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – intemperance
life wormhole: everwhile
people wormhole: embodying
walking wormhole: faintly apricot air?

 

Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – intemperance

Tags

1967, 2016, 8*, air, ale, breathing, countryside, earth, field, gaze, ghosts, grandfather, green, honeysuckle, Kent, life, Michael J Redford, noon, nose, quiet, sound, speech, suburbia, summer, Sunday, time

 

                on Sundays my father downed tools and was
                led by the nose – the Redford bequest –

                drawing us into the quietude of Kent,
                out from the crust of suburbia,

                plunged deepening into green
                carrying bags of sandwiches towards noon;

                when, he would gaze around awhile
                and “let’s try over there” as if he were only

                wondering, “landlord’s name is Bert,”
                he’d trail behind quietly to himself, breathing

                even ghosts in through his live and open nostrils
                (back, even, to the seventeenth century,

                 looking out over the tombstones,
                creaking & checking, drinking, ale); taught me

                to fathom honeysuckle
                on a damp summer’s air carrying far before

                the meet, to flare to the earth
                of a muck heap ‘made’ well, to bask

                and loiter by ammoniac stables
                breathing for to clear the head, to “foller yer nose”

                and find the green bean field –
                cup of sweet wine drunk with intemperance –

 

 

read the collected work as it is published: here
this is an appliquiary to: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Follow Your Nose; this piece is, of course, written from the uncle-person singular, therefore his ‘father’ was my Grandfather, who died when I was still a baby – I knew him about as much as a ruffle on the head from on high that I can remember; I have grown familiar with him through Mick’s writings and old pictures I have acquired to try and trick time out of its progress – AND IT SUCCEEDED!

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

air & green & Sunday wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Follow Your Nose
breathing & speech wormhole: ah … // oh … // meanwhile … // … // tha ya ta …
field wormhole: ‘field of corn …’
ghosts wormhole: passersby
life wormhole: passing below
sound wormhole: 1967
time wormhole: time

 

1967

Tags

1967, 2014, 5*, Burt Bacharach, desert, Dionne Warwick, evening, London, mauve, orange, prayer, purple, rock, sand, smell, sound, white

                                1967

                                one early
                                evening
                                in London
                                amid the
                                fug of
                                cabbage
                                and the
                                clack of
                                cleared
                                plates

                the deep orange sand was turning purple
                and the piled rocks remained white and mauve

                                in the
                                desert

 

reaching both from within, and through: I say a little prayer by Dionne Warwick and Burt Bacharach

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

Burt Bacharach & Dionne Warwick wormhole: 1964
evening wormhole: beepbeep
London & smell wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Follow Your Nose
mauve wormhole: hello, luvvey, do you want a cup of tea?
orange wormhole: magnificent salad
purple wormhole: the 19th century
sound wormhole: embodying
white wormhole: con / sum / mate

 

The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Follow Your Nose

Tags

1967, air, brother, countryside, Essex, father, fields, green, honeysuckle, horse, Kent, London, Michael J Redford, morning, mother, nose, pub, smell, suburbia, Sunday, the Boats of Vallisneria, trees

Follow Your Nose

My father had a nose for pubs, there’s no denying that!   Noses were always a prominent feature of the Redford family and very sensitive instruments they are too.   I remember when my brother and I were still at school, how mother would pack a shopping bag with sandwiches, apples and flasks of tea and early on Sunday mornings the whole family would disappear into the countryside.   We were then living in South East London and we would take advantage of every opportunity to escape into the freedom and quietude of Kent.   I was born in Sydenham and my father also was a native of that area, but when he was a boy, the green fields of Kent came rolling to within easy view from his back door.   Now alas, time has stamped these green fields with the concrete monotony of suburbia.   So it was that many a fine Sunday morning would see the Redford family making a bee-line for Shoreham just north of Sevenoaks.   Shoreham was our stepping off point and in those distant days it seemed a million miles from London.   My grandmother used to work at the Crown Hotel there and we were permitted to leave our bicycles in the garden while we plunged into the green depths of the surrounding countryside.   Towards noon father would suggest that we find a pub where we could revive our flagging energy and eat our sandwiches and, pausing awhile, he would gaze around and say, “Let’s try over there.”   Over the hill we would go and, sure enough, the very first building we would come to would be a pub.   Now this never failed.   It mattered not what part of the British Isles we were in, ‘Dad’s Nose’ was an infallible receiver and every pub a homing beacon.   In this way, father had built up over the years, a storehouse of information concerning pubs in Kent, Surrey and Sussex.   Sometimes a friend of the family would arrive at the house and suggest that we all take a trip out somewhere and have a drink.   “I’ve found a nice little pub at Luddesdowne,” they would say, “The Red Lion I think it is.”

Father’s mental filing cabinet would whirr into action and he’d say, “Ah yes, you mean the Golden Lion.   Lays down in the dip alongside an orchard.   Landlord’s name is Bert.”

I have never known my father to be caught out by a pub he didn’t know, although there was one occasion however, when father’s probosciscal (sic) infallibility received a severe jolt.   While living for a short period in Basildon New Town in Essex we sometimes took a stroll to Stock on Sunday mornings.   This was a distance of some ten miles and we usually timed our arrival at Stock to coincide with opening time.   On our first expedition however, we mistimed ourselves badly.   We had walked only as far as Great Burstead when the pubs began to open and so we decided against going on to Stock that morning for it would almost have been closing time by the time we reached our goal.   Following Dad’s nose, we turned off the main road and climbed the hill in the direction of Little Burstead.   At the top, among elm and oak, stood an old grey church.   Nestling beside this in the shadow of its spire was a small weather-boarded building that displayed all the characteristics of an Essex pub.   There were only a dozen or so other buildings in sight which were quite obviously private dwellings, so we walked up to the leaning timbers beside the church.   I was stunned and father was puzzled. Above the door was a sign which read ‘Village Stores – Newsagents – Tobacconists – Confectioners’.   This was something I could never have dreamt possible, father had failed and the honour of a long line of Redford noses had been thwarted.   This nagging failure prompted my father to do a little research, the results of which, in our collective view, reinstated the Redford’s nose to its rightful place in history.   The village stores was once the King’s Arms, a very old inn that dated back to the seventeenth century.   It stands along one side of the graveyard and, in days gone by, when the worthy patrons drank their ale in the back parlour, they could look out of the bar windows onto the tombstones, and it was for this reason that the inn was also known as Dead Man’s Rattle.

However, I must not give you dear reader a false impression of the Redford’s standards of propriety and morality.   We are not inveterate drunkards, but merely people who enjoy a pint of beer in congenial company and in congenial surroundings.   The Redford nose is not sensitive to only yeast and hops, but is also most appreciative of other aromas.   The nostalgic scent of honeysuckle on a damp summer’s eve for example.   It is surprising how far the scent is carried when the air is damp.   I have on one occasion been aware of the sweet tangle of honeysuckle a full two hundred yards before reaching it.   Of course, not all the smells of the countryside are as attractive, and here most people will automatically think of the many muck heaps dotted about the landscape and although one can hardly describe the scent of these as attractive, I personally do not place them in the unattractive category, for a muck heap that has ‘made’ well emanates a virile, earthy aroma that gives promise of future bumper crops.   The smell which immediately comes to mind in this category is that of the Stink Horn, the woodland fungus that gives off an overpowering stench of putrefying flesh and is attractive only to the bloated blue-bottle which is the curse of all rural ramblers.   The ammoniac-al smell of stables is offensive to some people, but I have many happy early memories connected with horses and I find it difficult to pass by a stable without pausing and conversing with the inhabitants, and even if there are no horses at home, I will stop, stand and stare.   Anyway, it is surprising how it clears the head.

One fine spring morning I visited a farmer friend of mine, but I arrived five minutes after he had left for Monk’s Tye, a fifteen acre field somewhere on the other side of the farm.   I told his wife who had opened the door to me, that I wasn’t familiar with the layout of the fields.

“That’s alright,” she beamed, “Yer can’t miss ‘im.   ‘E’s fixing the fence ‘longside the bean field – just foller yer nose.”

I went to the end of the stackyard, sucked my forefinger and stabbed it into the air.   A mild breeze from the west was moving the tree-tops and borne upon it was the unmistakably sweet, and to my mind, the most glorious country smell of all, that of a bean field.   I faced the zephyr and tacked across the fields.   It was a cup of sweet wine that I drank with unashamed intemperance.

At one period during my military days when I was transferred to Egypt, we embarked upon an exercise that took us trekking across the Sinai Desert to St. Cathrine’s Monastery.   In the heart of that leafless and shale-covered land cradled in the depths of silence and time, it struck me how different was the smell of the air to that of an English day.   I have always been of the mind that pleasure is the product of sensual contrasts and this certainly holds true in this instance for, although I had always delighted in the scent of a field of well-made hay or a breeze heavy with the sweet scent of a bluebell wood, I have never appreciated them more than on my return from that arid land.   So marked was the contrast and so great the ensuing pleasure, that I was moved to write the following lines:-

            Ne’re before, ‘till I went away
            From England, did an English day
            Seem quite so fair.   No line ‘twixt earth
            And sky so soft, no scene so dearly
            Held within the memory’s store
            For man’s old age to reap.
            A golden sun o’er greenest grass,
            The whitest clouds the azure dusts,
            And gentle is the soft warm breath
            That lifts the lark and cools
            The summer’s day.
            Low wind the lanes ‘twixt hedgerows
            Honeysuckle scented, trees clasp their
            Fingertips above in trembling sway,
            And softly rustling chestnut leaves
            So green, turn gold against the sun,
            Their echoes of a year gone by –
            The hunting ground of stoat and fox.
            The slow warm hours the humming
            Insects ride and dart, the trickling
            Streams the hot stones smooth,
            And slowly pass the whiles of dusk
            Across the silent fields once more.

 

read the collected work as it is published: here

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

air wormhole: just saying, is all VI: // accountable / for my own outbreath / …
father & Sunday wormhole: familiasyncopation
green wormhole: industrial estate
London wormhole: time
morning wormhole: 1964
smell wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – mmpph’
trees wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Snow

 

beepbeep

Tags

1960s, 1967, 2016, 7*, abandonment, colour, commentary, courage, crying, Dad, depression, direction, divorce, driving, evening, eyes, feeling sorry for myself, freedom, groundlessness, Have, home, hope, identity, life, light, looking, now, others, passing, people, pointlessness, purpose, renunciation, revolution, sense of self, sex, sign, sound, texture, time, true nature, Victoria & Albert Museum, world

                                did Dad leaving
                                trigger my sense of revolution or
                my sense of depression
that there is no purpose
                                in the world
                that I would eventually have to find the courage
to face those new tremors,
                                but five years on,
                                                there, between the given textures
                already cheap and fraying

                                or did revolution trigger Dad to leave
                                                                and find some other way
                                                                                to find some truer nature?

                -O~~~

                                I didn’t want the headphones, now
                                I didn’t want the commentary
                                                all safely wrapped and bordered
                                                                so I kept my own eyes
                                                                open and saw 50 year old memorabilia
                                                                                strangely mute, now
                                                                                despite the peacock-print

                                                and little in between
                                                                save shuffling overcoats with
                                                                no sense of direction where to go
                                                                                save their right of individual                
                                                                                                                way

                                                                                                ~~~O-

                                I don’t think I want the revolution
                                anymore –
                                                away with your awkward sex! –
                I want to know the innate freedom
                                I trust I have already,
                                                save for my sense of right of way

                                                                I cried for fifty years later that evening
                                                it is hard to lose your way returning home
                                                                cut up and turning in circles
                                                                                hoping for the right lane
                                                                                                lights on and direction to go                
                                                                                                                everywhere
                                                                                                signed
                                                                and passing overhead
                                                                it is hard to arrive
                                                toe to toe
                                                                with a fifty year old overcoat
                                with no face
                                but a blinking eye
and me with no headphones

                                                                beepbeep

 

on 30th October 2016, I visited the Victoria & Albert Museum exhibition @You Say You Want a Revolution’ – Records and Rebels 1966-1970 (a birth day present, thank you, Carol); my Dad left our family on 2nd November 1967, my eighth birthday, and the divorce became final by 1969; I think it was Brigitte Bardot who said something about the ‘tremors’ which were felt in the late 60s, but few who had the ‘courage’ to face them, but I can’t seem to find the quote verbatim; we got a bit lost, at first, driving back from west London

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

abandonment & Dad & people wormhole: chartless …
depression wormhole: the both passive and transitive / non-presumptive pre-conceptualist attenuation of being
divorce wormhole: 1967
evening & identity wormhole: sleep now
eyes & life & sound wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – snow
groundlessness & pointlessness wormhole: [once a] dilemminal [always a dilemminal]
Have wormhole: Doctor Strange III – the needs of billions
light wormhole: adjustment
looking wormhole: Clea
others & passing wormhole: passersby
renunciation wormhole: escape from Flat Planet
time wormhole: the too big moon
world wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Snow

 

Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – snow

Tags

1967, 2016, 9*, alley, axe, birth, black, blue, classroom, echo, eyes, faces, fields, garden, grey, hate, hazel, ivy, kitchen, leaf, life, love, mist, morning, passing, pigs, pink, Ramsden Heath, Robin, silence, sky, snow, sound, speech, step, sun, teacher, thought, ugliness, vertical, waiting, walls, white, windows, winter, witness, woodland, yellow

            snow

            waiting;

            ruffles beneath the trembling ivy,
            divergent verticals in the hazel coppices;

            silence;

            reverent steps, and in the cavernous
            grey of high hangs the faintest, pink;

            baton;

            on a woodland bank a single lesser
            periwinkle holds up a blue flower,

            by the wall a solo leaf descants to the ground
            and a snowflake touches the cheek;

            turn;

            the black background of the woods
            a million flakes seen,

            in the classroom thirty pairs of eyes
            drift across to the window

            and the music teacher holds
            his sentence;

            thought;

            leeward black, and fields of white, if
            we were to hate everything that

            included rip and tear of any ugliness,
            there would be nothing left to love;

            morning;

            through window panes the sun
            is a flat yellow disc viewable

            without hurt to the eye,
            mist divides land into borough

            and alleyway stepping crunch from the
            steam kitchen into the sparkling garden;

            piggery;

            at the bottom of the garden,
            piglets stop snuffling around and stand

            looking, like little pink statues, then …
            hurtle across the yard barking at the sun

            (the sow had rather build her nest in the
             corner of the field, one morning

             she was there, an army of piglets
             lined up at the milk bar

             the most ridiculous expressions
             of content upon their faces, and

             a robin on the solid water
             of the cattle trough);

            witness;

            the ch-nnk and bite of axe in log
            bounced across the fields to the woods and back with

            such clarity I expected it to continue
            as he laid his axe aside, “Morning”,

            “Morning”;

            it is not winter that dispels life,
            but life that dispels winter

 

read the collected work as it is published: here
this is an appliquiary to: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Snow

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

black & blue & echo & eyes & faces & fields & garden & grey & kitchen & life & love & morning & pink & silence & sky & snow & sound & sun & walls & white & windows & winter & yellow wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Snow
faces wormhole: “The Lady from Nowhere”
passing wormhole: trying to focus / on walking
thought wormhole: Clea
waiting wormhole: returning home handsome

 

The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Snow

Tags

'scape, 1967, 5*, Atlantic, birdsong, birth, black, blackbird, blue, branches, brick, countryside, death, echo, elm, eyes, fields, flower, garden, green, Greenwich, grey, hate, hills, ivy, kitchen, leaf, life, love, May, Michael J Redford, morning, pastel, pigs, pink, rain, red, rhythm, school, silence, sky, snow, sound, sparrows, stillness, summer, sun, swifts, talking, the Boats of Vallisneria, trees, valley, vertical, village, walls, white, wind, windows, winter, woodland, world, yellow

Snow

There is a great expectancy in waiting for the snow to begin.   Sometimes the snow comes with the wind when the trees are flailing and the Ruddock ruffles his breath beneath the trembling ivy.   Then, the contours of the land become accentuated, blackened on the leeward side to eye-shocking contrast to the whiteness on each other.   Each iron furrow stands in stark relief, a symbol of winter’s Herculean grip.   And where the skimming flakes have hurled themselves upon the wooded hills, each twig upon every branch, each branch upon every tree, hugs close a spectral image and hazel coppices become an abstraction of diverging verticals.

Sometimes however, the snow comes upon us unheralded; its approach is silent; no movement is seen among the fields or felt upon the cheek.   Somewhere below, the dormouse sleeps, and as the sparrow waits in the hedge I find myself walking with reverent steps as if, when in a house of worship, one feels the presence of the graven saints.   Eventually I must pause in my tracks, feeling guilty of the very movement of my limbs when all else is still; and in the greyness of the sky there is but the faintest suggestion of pink.   On a woodland bank the adventurous lesser periwinkle displays a solitary blue flower and from the old red-brick garden wall of the big house on the hill, the ivy casts down a leaf that slips rhythmically from side to side like the baton of the music teacher in the village school below.   The leaf touches the ground and a snowflake touches the cheek.   The eye is directed from the sky to the black background of the woods and a million flakes are seen; a million pieces of perfection yet each one different to the other.   In the classroom below thirty pairs of wide eyes turn to the window and the rising undercurrent of excitement is checked by the teacher’s baton.   I would indeed be guilty of a grave hypocrisy if I were to say that only young hearts flutter with excitement at this particular moment, for I too have never outgrown my love for the snow and look forward to the white, silent world to come.

Of course, snow brings with it its hardships as do the frosts, the winds and the rains.   They bring discomfort and sometimes death to the aged, the sick and to the wildlife about us.   But then so do the searing hot summers that parch the earth and lay heavy upon the fevered brow.   Always there is something inimical to or destructive of life, yet at the same time and in many cases because of it, life is somehow strengthened.   I remember how uneasy I once felt when harrowing a field of oats for the very first time.   The teeth of the harrow clawed at the tender green shoots, breaking and bruising them, threatening to tear them bodily from the soil.   Had I misunderstood my employer’s instructions? Was this really what he wanted me to do?   And yet two months later, despite its apparent destruction, there stood before me a field of rippling, luscious green.   If we were to hate all things that displayed an ugly side, there would be nothing left in the world to love.

This morning the window panes were covered with acanthus and the sun was a flat yellow disc that could be viewed without hurt to the eye.   The mist seemed to smooth the scene into a two dimensional pasteboard picture which gave the impression that I could reach out and touch the pastel blue hills across the valley.   I donned an additional thick-knitted woollen jersey, pulled on my gumboots and gloves and stepped from the warm steamy kitchen into the sparkling garden.   The brilliance and frostiness of the air sent the blood racing to my cheeks and my ears began to tingle.   In the piggery at the bottom of the garden, a mother sow with her nine three week old piglets were taking the air.   The little ‘piggles’ as they were sometimes called in this area, were racing around with their snouts down, like little pink snow ploughs forging furrows in the frost encrusted snow.   As I approached, their heads jerked up and, like tiny pink statues, they eyed me for a brief second before turning on their heels and hurtling across the piggery barking (or were they laughing) at the morning sun.   The impression of nudity that young piglets must give must be seen to be believed, and the sight of these nude little bodies coursing through the snow set me shivering.   I once heard of a sow who, in preference to the warm, dry sty supplied by her human master, built her nest in the corner of a field, and nothing on earth would induce her to return to the comfort of the ‘maternity’ ward.   Early the following, bitterly cold, morning, she was found burrowed deeply within her nest with an army of piglets lined up at the milk bar with the most ridiculous expressions of contentment upon their faces.   Not ten feet distant, a robin alighted on the solid water of the cattle trough and proclaimed the good news to the world.

However, it was too cold to stand watching the antics of these endearing little creatures (I dare not think of the hours wasted in this way during the warmer days) so I entered the lane that led to the fields.   The dull klunk klunk of axe striking wood came to my ears and I saw through a gap in the snow-bound hedge the rhythmic rise and fall of my neighbour’s arm as he stooped over a pile of logs.   The sound bounced across the fields to the woods and back again with such clarity, that I half expected the echo to continue as he laid his axe aside.   He saw me, nodded at me and said, “Morning”.   I nodded at him.   “Morning”.

The countryman has an almost psycho-analytic method of extracting information from the unwary traveller.   By a few pointed remarks or statements he finds out all he wants to know without having asked a single question.   Having lived in the countryside for half my life, I have developed to a lesser degree the same technique.   I did verbal battle with him for five minutes but my defences began to crumble when he said, “Better watch that plank over the stream, bound to be slippery with all that frost on it.”

“I expect it is,” I said, “Still, the tread of these boots is almost new.”

Now he knew where I was going, for the plank in question bridged the stream that ran along the north side of the woods.

“Surprising how much longer it takes to get across country when there’s frost and snow about.”   He peered at me from the corners of his eyes.   “Best get a move on or else you’ll be late.”

I gave in.

“That’s true, but then I’m only out for a stroll.”

Questioning my sanity, he returned to his chopping and I to my walk.

It has often been said by the townsman (although having spent most of my childhood in the grimy streets of Greenwich I no longer regard myself as a townsman) that the countryside is ‘all very well’ in summer, but ‘muddy, dismal and uninteresting’ in winter.   Muddy it may well be, but it is clean mud, untainted by diesel oil, slime and soot.   As for being dismal, are they so blind they cannot see the beauty in a curtain of falling rain brushing the distant hills, or hear the music of a million drops of water among the shining leaves or smell the fragrance of freshly dampened earth?   Can they not see the beauty that I see now, of glistening white lacework of the frosted elms against a crystal clear sky, and undulating fields of virgin snow, pure and smooth, a countenance of innocence that has yet to bear the mark of man’s impropriety?

In the days of winter when the hedgerows are empty and the ditches and river banks laid bare, one can discover more easily the badger’s sett or the otter’s holt.   One is able to make a mental note of where the blackbird is likely to build his nest; perhaps the disused nest of a song thrush now exposed by the skeletal hedge will eventually house the spotted white eggs of the blue tit in the warm days of May to come.   Close scrutiny of tree and bush will reveal a host of living green buds wrapped tightly in their protective coats; life is expanding beneath the frozen ground, straining to burst forth, and even as the blackbird sings, the lambs are falling.   The countryside in winter is not dead; there is life, vibrant and pulsing as the blood in one’s veins.   It is all around, above one’s head and below one’s feet.   It is not winter that dispels life, but life that dispels winter.   The immigrant swift brings with it the warm southern winds and life throughout the land erupts, forcing the icy blasts, the snows and the frosts into the North Atlantic.   And after all, without winter, there would be no spring.

 

read the collected work as it is published: here

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

black & talking wormhole: returning home handsome
blackbird & echo & fields wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – A Sign of the Times
blue & rain & sky wormhole: the too big moon
branches & wind wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – … as the new town marches in
death & white wormhole: the 19th century
eyes & morning & sun wormhole: traffic lights and broad avenue
garden wormhole: what life went on
green & grey & life & red & silence & walls & windows wormhole: did I get old?
hills wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – A Precious Moment
kitchen & school wormhole: hello, luvvey, do you want a cup of tea?
love & sound wormhole: new-found love – poewieview #36
pink wormhole: languidly close the portal
snow wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Contents
sparrows wormhole: tired
stillness wormhole: the sounds of 1969 // [would have] seemed that way – poewieview #13
trees wormhole: was there a moon / on the alleyway wall / confused in front of / the city skyline?
valley wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – moment
winter wormhole: The Boats of Vallesneria by Michael J. Redford – Autumn Thoughts
world wormhole: let it all go
yellow wormhole: magnificent salad

 

Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – … as the new town marches in

Tags

1967, 2016, 8*, abundance, ageing, autumn, birthday, blackberries, branches, brown, change, childhood, climbing, clouds, cows, earth, elm, field, gate, ghosts, gold, grey, hedge, ivy, lark, leaves, legs, life, listening, memory, mist, path, red, rook, rose-hips, running, seagull, shadow, signpost, silence, singing, sky, skyline, society, trees, wind, yellow

            there are great mountains of cumulus
            towered above, shadows course over
            grey-yellow stubble, gulls hackle rooks
            in leaning elms while red and black-

            berries hang in the hedgerow … run,
            run downhill, stretch my legs in boundless
            stride, stream through the air from boy
            to man, flood the plain with open memory;

            or maybe: scale a furtive upward glance,
            through boughs of avenue, a third
            dimension, to survey, to just survey all
            the song of all to sing ‘laaaaaark’; but

            I’ll just rest here, now, sit beside the gate
            sit under the signpost, and listen … foliage
            turned dark and almost brown, the earth
            awaits the golden plough while dancing

            rose-hips watch skeins of Friesians
            work meticulous across the skyline and
            … everything will change, piped rippled
            through bygone years – there will be ghosts

            in the ditches, there will be paths adrift
            of leaf, the ivy will reach up from the post
            which points only to the wind now leaving
            autumn mists to drift like webs into the

            corners of paddocks; and there is a strange
            silence in the sky … as the new town marches in

 

read the collected work as it is published: here
this is an appliquiary to: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – A Sign of the Times

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

autumn & branches & brown & change & childhood & clouds & field & grey & hedge & leaves & life & mist & path & red & seagull & silence & sky & skyline & trees & wind & yellow wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – A Sign of the Times
ghosts wormhole: just saying, is all IV: // lost
gold wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – autumn
listening wormhole: through the pane – poewieview #34
shadow wormhole: the purple mist between
society wormhole: poessay III: jijimuge

 

The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – A Sign of the Times

Tags

1967, 3*, air, autumn, blackberries, blackbird, branches, brown, change, chestnut tree, childhood, climbing, clouds, cottage, countryside, cows, echo, elm, Essex, field, grass, green, grey, hawthorne, hedge, hill, ivy, lark, leaves, life, memory, Michael J Redford, mist, oak, path, red, RF Hilder, rook, running, seagull, signpost, silence, singing, sitting, sky, skyline, snake, summer, sycamore, the Boats of Vallisneria, time, tits, trees, vista, walking, wind, woodland, work, yellow

A Sign of the Times

Things are changing around us all the time and when one lives with and through these changes it can be very difficult to tell when they occur.   Changes are more evident and in many cases more startling when one returns to a scene of bygone years, and this has never been made more clear to me than now as I sit beside a signpost in an Essex lane.   It is a contrast so shocking that it has left me quite numb, and it is difficult to understand how not only the facial character, but also the spiritual character of the countryside can be altered beyond recognition.

Some five years ago, I holidayed with friends who lived in south east Essex.   One morning I crossed the meadow at the rear of the cottage and entered Ten Acres which sloped gently to the woods below.   The full heat of the summer had abated to the mildness of early autumn and great mountains of cumulous, creamy topped, towered above me, their shadows coursing silently over the yellow-grey stubble.   Two glistening sea gulls above the oaks did verbal battle with a colony of rooks quarrelling in the elms and, far above, it seemed a thousand larks were singing.   Blackberries, some bright red others over-ripe and heavy with juice, shaded themselves in the hedgerow, and beside a weathered bale of straw, forgotten perhaps or left too wet for carting, a grass snake basked in the sun.

Gazing down the green slope, there came within me a sudden desire to run, to stretch my legs in great leaping strides, to see the hedgerows flash by in a blur and to feel the mild air stream about me.   I wanted to race the wind that went tumbling down the hill to the woods below.   Twenty years earlier the desire would have been satiated without further thought, but time passes and the unconscious brakes of inhibition condemn these simple pleasures to the memory’s store.   For one brief second I was a young boy again about to satisfy a desire, but then all too soon, I was a man again, and grown men are not expected to behave in such a manner.   To see a child walking along the road in an orderly fashion one moment and then break into a mad gallop the next is an occurrence accepted without question, but many an eyebrow would be raised if I were to do such a thing now.   Such are the many simple pleasures we must perforce leave aside as we grow up.   There are of course many other pleasures which take their place, but even so the illogical, spontaneous desires of childhood every so often burst within the heart and flood the mind with memories.

I had reached the wood and was a boy once more.   Gazing above, I felt a sudden desire to reach up and haul myself into the green branches.   One can climb a tree a hundred times and go up and come down a hundred different ways.   I think perhaps it is the additional dimension which gives tree climbing that extra fascination, for if one explores an area of ground, one has but two dimensions to contend with, but up here in a green swaying arbour, one has a third.   In the fullness of summer, high up in the sycamores and the chestnuts, there are green caverns to explore, and the diverging paths that disappear into the foliage above lure one on to the very top where, in green shrouded secrecy, one can survey the surrounding terrain.

To me, and no doubt to a large number of other adults, these things still hold a fascination and most of us are able to fulfil these old desires in one way or another.   It may be by toying with model railways or messing about in boats; it may be by dressing for the local amateur dramatics or taking part in a sport.   On the other hand, it may be by casting a furtive glance over the shoulder and climbing a tree.

After walking for an hour or so, I came upon a signpost beside an open gate and, finally bowing to the truth that I am no longer a boy, I sat beside the gate to rest my weary legs.   The foliage of the countryside had turned a very dark green, almost brown in fact, heralding an early autumn.   The grass between the drills of faded stubble would not grow much higher now.   It had been an early year altogether and quite a large number of farmers had managed a second cut of hay.   Now the harvest was done and the good earth awaited the plough and the frost.   Hawthorn berries were an abundant red across the headland and a distant skein of Friesians grazed their way slowly across the skyline above.   A tit leapt across my view and into a thicket close by and made the shiny red rose-hips dance.   All around was the gentle yet positive movement of life.   It was something to be not only seen, but felt.   Little did I realise then how all this was to be changed.

Now five years have passed and I am once more beside the signpost, but this year the summer has been short.   Already the trees are bare and possess that clipped appearance of a Hilder autumnal study.   The tall grasses in the leafless hedgerows bend stiffly beneath the chilly winds which have been noticeable this past month.   Gone is the suppleness in their sway, gone is the living green from their stems.   Soon a wintry gale will snap and blow them into the ditches to join the ghosts of previous years.   The lanes are filled with dead leaves, but no longer do they echo with the laughter of children as they wade knee deep through them, for nobody comes this way now.   The gate hangs askew on its rusty hinges and needs to be lifted and torn from the coarse grasses which grasp the bottom rail.   Such action however, is not necessary, for although the signpost once read ‘Public Footpath’, no one walks this way now.   The letters are illegible and covered with green lichen, and around its rotting base a small ivy begins to reach for the sky.   The footpath which ran diagonally across the field is no longer to be seen, not that this matters either, for the tiny lane bears no traveller save that of the drifting mists of autumn.

(R.F. Hilder (1905 – 1993), an English marine and landscape artist and book illustrator).

I gazed at the signpost and thought of the sweat that went into the making of it.   Strong backs bent to dig the hole, strong arms lifted the stout wooden post.   A craftsman’s eye morticed in the sign that is as square today as it ever was.   The painted letters have peeled and left but a ghost on the woodwork.   It doesn’t matter anyway, for no one passes this way now.   But it used to lead somewhere.   For someone the sign pointed to journey’s end; once cows scratched their necks upon it and children used it as a target for throwing pebbles.   But now it merely points to the wind.   There is a strange silence in the sky.   No rooks, gulls or larks can I hear; no animals rustling in the hedgerows.   Never have I witnessed such an empty land, a land so void of life and feeling.   Although the wind is cold upon my neck, I cannot hear it in the trees and the dead leaves, sodden from the wandering mists, make no sound as they fling themselves at my boots.   The ditches have filled with rotted vegetation and the water has spread.   Marsh grasses and wild flock have appeared for a brief spell of life.   And brief it will be, for six months from now, the new town will be born.

                Once I worked among green hills
                And as I worked I sang, oh yes
                I sang mid the trees, in echoing woods
                And o’er the dewy fields.

                I sang with the rising lark, whose voice
                Cascaded from above,
                I sang always a joyous song
                Of those things that I love.

                My orchestra came from the wind,
                From trickling brooks and rustling leaves,
                From earth below and all about,
                E’en heaven’s lofty eaves.

                But now my green hills lay beneath
                A glaring concrete face
                And where once sang the blackbird’s heart,
                Ten thousand people pace.

                So now accompaniment have I none,
                Nor reason for to sing.
                My heart they buried ‘neath the stone
                When marched the new town in.

 

read the collected work as it is published: here

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

air & branches & seagull wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – gull circling out at sea
autumn & hedge & leaves & trees & wind wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Simon Upon The Downs
blackbird & childhood wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – from arm to nature, doing nothing
brown & grey & path & red & silence & yellow wormhole: hello, luvvey, do you want a cup of tea?
change wormhole: reaching branch
clouds & sitting wormhole: and smile / like a bud
echo wormhole: fresh destiny
field wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – I suddenly / remembered
green & sky wormhole: through the pane – poewieview #34
life & mist & time wormhole: AT-tennnnnnnn – waitfrit waitfrit – SHUN!
oak wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – the soft canticle of the gourds:
skyline wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – autumn
walking wormhole: trying to focus / on walking
work wormhole: travel