ssreet chak-chak

Tags

'scape, 2013, 5*, Ashdown Forest, birdsong, blue, branches, gorse, hills, sky, sound

                ssreet chak-chak

                the gorse branch
                the stone chat

                and the high blue sky
                distant as the hills

 

 

 

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

Ashdown Forest wormhole: nothing to write
blue & sky wormhole: 1968
branches wormhole: monument to vainglory
hills wormhole: relief
sound wormhole: somewhere

 

open window

Tags

'scape, 2013, 5*, birds, birdsong, blue, echo, houses, open, passing, quiet, sky, snow, sound, streets, sun, time, trees, windows

                open window

                in the quiet street
                sun shone against
                the sides of houses

                and began to melt
                the dust of snow,
                at length,

                soft steps pass –
                foot-scrape and
                trouser-scuff – then

                cough once twice
                in upper voice
                down the houses

                and it was only then
                that the birds called
                in different ways

                in different trees and
                all of which echoed
                down the blue blue sky

 

 

 

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

birds wormhole: Is There / Life on Mars? – poewieview #32
birdsong wormhole: relief
blue & quiet & sky & sound & windows wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
echo wormhole: this aching // and spacious dichotomy
open wormhole: fine
passing wormhole: to allow / passage
snow wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – snow
streets wormhole: familiasyncopation
sun wormhole: 1964
time wormhole: alighted
trees wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Follow Your Nose

 

relief

Tags

'scape, 2013, 5*, birdsong, blackbird, change, continuity, hills, Lewes, relief, twilight

                      such a relief
                      as the daylight

                      fades and the
                      hills of Lewes

                      darken
                      the blackbird

                      continues to
                      chirp

                      in a hundred
                      different ways

 

 

 

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

blackbird wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Snow
change wormhole: comfy
hills wormhole: 1966

 

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

 

the coming of ‘The Boats of Vallisneria’ by Michael J. Redford

Tags

1960s, 1967, 1970s, 2007, 2016, Billericay, birdsong, childhood, colour, cottage, education, Essex, evening, farm, garden, grandfather, green, image, John, Kenya, life, London, love, morning, Ramsden Heath, South Africa, uncle, war, windows, writing

 

 

 

I have come into possession of a piece of work that my Uncle Mick did during the 1960s.   He was in his thirties when he wrote the ‘Boats of Vallisneria’ having survived a childhood of war and evacuation, having completed what education was available then, having completed a period of military service in Kenya and South Africa and returned to London, to move to Billericay in Essex, to begin his life proper.   His father (my grandfather) died early in the 60s and he spent the rest of his life living with and looking after his mother living in the tied cottage to the farm he worked.

He completed this work because he wanted to explore the shape and pattern of [his] life.   He completed it even while the changes in farming brought his work there to a close.   [He went on to become a gardener and eventually set up his own business framing pictures].   He submitted the manuscript to Dent & Sons for publication, but they declined.

He let me have a look at the script when I was in my late teens and visiting and whinnying on about wanting to be a writer.   This was in the later 1970s.   I was way too green and cursive to read it with great discernment or generosity and commented that it was OK but quite amateurish (a youthful candour with which I hurt many a person close to me when I was young and arrogant – I’m sorry, everyone).

The dear man died in 2007, and I had long since forgotten his work (although I remember being honoured that he had shown me his work – it confirmed to me that being a writer was a noble thing to be).   I had a visit recently from my brother who brought a whole case of artefacts from my uncle, one of which was the original manuscript.

… I think I’d like to publish it on my blog.   Share the work with the world that he was not so able to do during his own time.   In his honour.   In memoriam.   To preserve and celebrate the green-paint-on-sturdy-wood life of Ramsden Heath during the 1960s and 1970s.   To celebrate the linen-atmosphere of small-pane cottage window looking out on the garden in all facet.   To listen in on the darken-colours of morning and evening and bird-call in Essex countryside, every one different and newly-miraculous found.

While typing it up I felt I could tap the kernel of what he was exploring and cut in to his images and experiences within – and sometimes behind – his writing.   I would also like to explore his writing through my own.   And publish them alongside each other like a healthy pair of framed pictures above the mantelpiece.   To celebrate my love for him.   And make the contact with him that I was too gauche to make while he was alive.   (How much I appreciate people the most, once I have lost life with them).

His work will come first … soon

 

read the collected work as it is published: here

 

 

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

1967 wormhole: 1967
childhood & morning wormhole: currency of generations
education wormhole: aghh – we’ve been infected / it’s spreading through the system / we’re losing our files … / it’s taken out the processor … / I, I can’t open with this program anymore … / it’s scanning me – / I’ve got to buy a Virus Protection Program / from it …
evening wormhole: constant hummm
garden wormhole: diligence
green & life & love wormhole: being in love – poewieview #26
London wormhole: tag cloud poem IX – haiku is awkward / the more that is left in / like uncombed hair
Ramsden Heath & uncle wormhole: Michael Redford: triptych
war wormhole: just saying, is all V: // … systematic and consistent disempowerment
windows wormhole: between thoughts
writing wormhole: balancing // with a whole lot of deft

 

Hurst Green

Tags

2013, birdsong, echo, feet, fence, girl, muse, phone, portrait, staring, station, time, Uckfield-London line

 

 

 

                                              Hurst Green

                                the girl
                who walked from her Mini with lithe
                step stood by the concrete fence grown its own lichen
                from decades standing with
                                hot veins
                                on the top
                                of her feet

                while birds pheeped and echoed in the long-
                grown copse behind turned
                                her feet
                                sideways –
                                anxious –

                as she leant on the fence to make the phone
                call and chewed the inside of her mouth staring
                at the platform
                                for minutes
                                afterwards

 

0.46

 

 

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

echo & muse wormhole: currency of generations
feet wormhole: Western Motel, 1957
girl wormhole: Shonagh – poewieview #17
time wormhole: the missing chord // the now-silent seagull
Uckfield-London line wormhole: train journey // like a branch

 

nothing to say

Tags

2016, Arlington Reservoir, attention, birdsong, blue, bluebells, clouds, driving, flowers, grey, morning, notice, passing, pink, radio, walking, warblers, woodland

 

 

 

                           nothing to say

                           passing bluebells
                           at the speed of
                           recall, maybe

                           cresting a hillock
                           behind the last
                           bend of road

                           under deep vault
                           of hanging cloud
                           grey to the blue

                           and pink flowers
                           between reclining
                           concrete slabs

                           humbly accompanying
                           the Arlington Reservoir
                           with the white-

                           throated warblers I’d
                           heard on the radio
                           this morning

 

 

 

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

attention wormhole: quick inventory after coffee
blue wormhole: impressionism
clouds wormhole: words tumble like / boulders – poewieview #25
grey wormhole: 1963
morning & walking wormhole: Le Pont Royal, 1909
passing wormhole: fine
pink wormhole: stacked
radio wormhole: 1965

 

fine

Tags

'scape, 2013, birdsong, blackbird, cars, ceiling, combe end, living room, morning, open, passing, rain, silence, sound, speech, talking, windows

 

 

 

                                                              fine

                                              the
                                is-it-raining-I-can’t-see-it
                settled yes-been-like-this-
                all-morning settling lower and lower
                like a living room ceiling
                while the blackbirds call
                                each other

                                then
                after a car passed and diminished
                away into the silence
                                ‘hello, Anne, how’s it going?’

 

 

 

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

blackbird wormhole: the breath of London
cars & morning wormhole: 1965
combe end wormhole: stacked
living room & sound & talking & windows wormhole: Michael Redford: triptych
open wormhole: opening
passing & silence wormhole: words tumble like / boulders – poewieview #25
rain wormhole: first Spring storm
speech wormhole: aghh – we’ve been infected / it’s spreading through the system / we’re losing our files … / it’s taken out the processor … / I, I can’t open with this program anymore … / it’s scanning me – / I’ve got to buy a Virus Protection Program / from it …

 

clouds

Tags

'scape, 2013, birdsong, black, blue, boulders, candyfloss, clouds, drifting, frond, girder, gliding, gorge, green, grey, iced bun, incandescence, Independence Day, kettle, moss, National Geographic, pan, passing, pine, plume, sky, slow, snow, spaceship, steel, sun, swirls, washing up, wasp, water, waterfall, white

 

 

 

                                              clouds

                                sun fresh-laid snow grey
                                moss on boulders grey
                wisps of steel scourer grey
                                              kettle-plume greys
                                slightly bulging wide underneath of girder grey
                                new galvanised pan grey
                                                                gorge grey
                                black and white National Geographic waterfall grey
                                bowl of water after the washing up greys
                white billows beside the clear blue grey
                                speed-swirls drifting achingly slow grey
                                incandescent candyfloss grey
                                gliding in front of girth belt of grey
                                giant iced bun finger grey dropping
                                              undercarriage like a wasp grey
                                Independence Day invading spaceship grey
                                              where has all the birdsong gone grey

                all behind and above the green-dark silhouette of pine fronds

                                                                                 grey

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–
black wormhole: 2 pm
blue wormhole: Soir Bleu, 1914
clouds & grey & passing wormhole: portrait: / two pigeons
green & white wormhole: when in Belgium do as the chocolates do
pine wormhole: Ashdown Forest / 080213 14:47
sky wormhole: row boat
snow wormhole: now, the verticals go down as well as they go up
sun wormhole: com- / mute
water wormhole: sooner or later

 

library: start where you are IV // all the distance I have travelled!

Tags

2014, ageing, being, birdsong, books, carpet, compassion, echo, feet, identity, Lewes, library, life, light, listening, notebook, opening, passing, people, reading, red, roof, settling, shadow, sound, striving, study, table, talking, talking to myself, travelling, walking, windows, writing

 

 

 

                library: start where you are IV

                                time to write –
                                but I’ve come
                                to the table

                                wanting to find
                                the same people
                                the same vistas –

                                foreclosed*
                                before I even open
                                the notebook

                                wanting the talk of feet reading
                                and the scent of sigh tired and the
                                stretching in common embrace

                                but instead I have the constant
                                humm of light high up in the varnished
                                rafters the intermittent beep

                                of the drinks machine and
                                the sway of heavy man with step-
                                energy walking up then down the

                                quiet research balcony
                                which I hadn’t been noticing
                                aha; I see, I hear, I, here.

                                the light doesn’t hum
                                it spreads the ubiquitous
                                plum-red carpet with

                                venn shadows from feet
                                from case; that alarm was it
                                regular between key-tap-return and bird-twit

                                has stopped
                                the heavy man went downstairs
                                and I noticed the girders and ties

                                (that such mass can move so decisive
                                 and change without wheel or haul
                                 through all the planes we have riveted

                                 and braced about our life)
                                at last I am settled and
                                my table still empty

                                              I’ve

                                been trying to get
                                from here to there,
                                where there would really

                                make here much better and
                                connect them together,
                                reduce their distance,

                                dissolve any distinction,
                                              I
                                have studied this extensively

                                in all those books, composed it, even;
                all the distance I have travelled!
                                from here to there

                                marking myself wrinkled tired
                                and echoed in my own space
                                              … actually quite nice here, if I let open some windows

 

* this piece is a sequel to [start where you are III] – delve which was quite cute; happened in the same library in the same town, but in entirely different lives

 

 

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

being & writing wormhole: hot chocolate
books & compassion & reading & settling & table & talking to myself wormhole: [start where you are III] – delve
carpet wormhole: Trinity Arts
echo wormhole: ‘in the midst of winter …’
feet & identity & sound & travelling wormhole: Totnes
life wormhole: lifetime
light & people & windows wormhole: up here
listening wormhole: purpose
passing & talking wormhole: ‘discution poli / d’orage …’
red wormhole: on the raised patio reading Plath
roof wormhole: prologue-ing
shadow wormhole: the dash is magnificent / the shadow grotesque
striving wormhole: re lax // me
study wormhole: new year’s eve 2014; train up to London to / walk the bridges across the Thames, and / listen to the voices say it is, and was, like, / but get back home before the fireworks / obliterate it all in the emptying twilight
walking wormhole: ambling around / the garden centre