The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – With Pigs

Tags

1967, apples, birdsong, cabbage, carrot, character, ears, eating, eyes, face, feet, field, fight, food, garden, humanity, living, Michael J Redford, morning, mud, piglets, pigs, pink, potato, pregnancy, presence, smell, smile, snoring, speech, speed, the Boats of Vallisneria, time

With Pigs

“Trouble is, you can smell ‘em a mile off.”   This was said not by a townsman as one would expect, but by a countryman.   He was referring to pigs and his observation was indicative of the general opinion and stigma that has surrounded the pig from time immemorial.   “The pig,” said Mrs Grundy, “is a disgusting creature of filthy habits who lives in a dark, odoriferous hovel and wallows in mud.   It is a creature whose appetite can never be satiated and is like a dustbin on four legs that will receive almost anything into its ever-open mouth and will, without a flicker of conscience, steal the last morsel of food from its neighbour.”   There is in fact a remarkable similarity between the pig and many humans.   Perhaps these are strong words, but then the smell of a pig kept in such conditions is even stronger and whose fault is it but that of its keeper.   The pig is essentially a clean animal.   True, it loves to make a mud wallow in the corner of a field on a hot day when the gnats are biting, but one can hardly call this dirty, especially when some females of the human family pay to have it plastered all over their faces and the males of the species come home covered from head to foot after playing games all afternoon in it.   Given plenty of clean straw, a sow will make a comfortable nest for herself and her offspring and will rarely foul her bed with droppings.   She reserves the brightest corner of the sty for this and even the young piglets instinctively use this special corner without any training whatsoever.   Because of this, it has been known for young pigs to be effectively house-trained.   A pig enjoys his food, he takes no pains to disguise the fact, and is usually most grateful for any special tit-bit that comes his way, refusing the offering only when he is ill.   Generally speaking, a hungry pig is a healthy pig.

Pigs are a happy and friendly people.   They are never too preoccupied (except when feeding – and that goes for many humans as well) to pass the time of day, and will chatter away for as long as you care to stay.   All they ask in return for the honour of their presence is a scratch behind the ear or a rub on the belly.   Unlike most people I have pigs at the bottom of my garden – not fairies, and I invariably spend a couple of hours therein each day.   After pottering around for some minutes there steals over me a strong feeling of a presence close at hand watching me with a purposeful eye destined to catch my attention.   I turn and find myself gazing into the friendly face of old Split Ear, a black and white Essex sow who has lived at the piggery now for some six or seven years.   Her name, though not very romantic, is appropriate, for her left ear had been rent asunder in her younger days from a fight with a barbed wire fence, and as the ears of this particular breed droop forward and cover the eyes, Split Ear would gaze quizzically at me through the hole in her ear, head cocked slightly to one side.   In early days when I first made her acquaintance, this feeling of being watched was a little disturbing.   She would stand stock still eyeing me in that cock-eyed manner of hers, noting with precision every move I made.   I mistook her friendly gaze of interest for one of criticism and became so annoyed with her that, early one March morning, I hurled a cabbage stalk at her which bounced off her snout and landed at her feet.   She sniffed at it, turned it over and, as she gazed up at me, I perceived that a delighted smile had spread across her face.   From that moment on we became close friends, and we would pass away many a pleasant moment in each other’s company.   I came to know and respect her many habits and fads and she in turn would confide in me her most intimate secrets.   One fine spring morning she told me that she was twelve weeks gone and had only another three to go.   We counted the days together and as she grew bigger and bigger and the great day approached, she developed a strong desire for sour apples.   I would offer a selection of tasty morsels such as a cabbage leaf, a potato, a carrot and an apple.   Each time she would eat the apple first and only when she realised that no more apples were forthcoming, would she set about devouring the remaining items.   Eventually the great day arrived and she disappeared into the maternity ward.   A week later, when he confinement was over, she proudly paraded her young ones before me for my inspection.   There were fourteen in all and a very even bunch they were too.   Normally a litter contains one or two piglets that are smaller and weaker than the rest, the runts, or cads as they are sometimes called, but old Split Ear’s troupe was so evenly matched, it was impossible to tell them apart.

All young animals have an innocence and a charm about them, but young piglets, to my mind, are the most endearing of all.   Their character can be likened to those of mischievous little schoolboys, full of fun and pranks and as happy as the day is long.   Often I would creep up on them unobserved to watch their antics, particularly on those days that invariably crop up from time to time when nothing goes right, and I am soon elevated from the doldrums by their uninhibited gaiety, it is a therapy that never fails.   Approach them silently, enjoy their antics awhile, then step from your hiding place. Instantly they freeze into diminutive statues, poised on the very tips of their dainty toes and, with not a quiver of muscle between them, they peer wickedly at you from the corners of their eyes.   Then suddenly, one of them will utter a staccato bark which is the signal for the tumult to continue.   These little creatures are so keen to be off that despite violent activity from their legs, they make no forward progress for several seconds and in spite of their efforts, remain in the same spot kicking up clouds of dust behind them.   Eventually their feet find a grip and they shoot off in all directions with the speed of bullets.   Owing to the momentum of these little pink projectiles, collisions are common and these frequently lead to fights in which all and sundry take part.   Noisy though it is, the melee rarely produces a serious casualty – a few scratched ears, grazed bellies and nipped tails perhaps, but seldom anything more serious and the cause of dissention is soon forgotten.   The only other occasion on which a difference of opinion is likely to occur is that of the feed time scrum down.   The normal pattern of events here is that one piglet is gradually squeezed off the end of the line until he finds himself out in the cold and teat-less.   With unabated fury, he then hurls himself upon his fellow diners which immediately causes someone else to be pushed off the other end.   This sets up a cycle of events that flags only when the energy begins to fail and the bellies begin to fill, and soon nothing is heard but the song of a bird and the satisfied snoring of pigs.

Likening them once more to schoolchildren, it is surprising how quickly they grow up, how quickly the irrepressible energy of youth is funnelled into mature and profound thoughts that mould the character.   And pigs do think – of this I am convinced.   One has merely to accept them and to treat them as equals to discover their thoughtful looks, their smiles of delight and to understand their many moods which are so very much like our own.

 

read the collected work as it is published: here

 

 

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

eyes & morning & time wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – both fawn and grey
feet wormhole: THURSDAY by William Carlos Williams
field wormhole: THE DESOLATE FIELD by William Carlos Williams
garden wormhole: Sheffield Park Gardens
living wormhole: only
pink wormhole: we held cold hands
smell wormhole: BLUEFLAGS by William Carlos Williams
smile wormhole: A Solitude by Denise Levertov
speech wormhole: despite that

 

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BLUEFLAGS by William Carlos Williams

Tags

1921, 6*, air, blossom, blue, cars, children, distance, flowers, grapes, green, gutter, light, marsh, mist, petals, reeds, smell, strawberries, streets, sun, voices, water, William Carlos Williams, willow

                                BLUEFLAGS

                I stopped the car
                to let the children down
                where the streets end
                in the sun
                at the marsh edge
                and the reeds begin
                and there are small houses
                facing the reeds
                and the blue mist
                in the distance
                with grapevine trellises
                with grape clusters
                small as strawberries
                on the vines
                and ditches
                running springwater
                that continue the gutters
                with willows over them.
                The reeds begin
                like water at a shore
                their pointed petals waving
                dark green and light.
                But blueflags are blossoming
                in the reeds
                which the children pluck
                chattering in the reeds
                high over their heads
                which they part
                with bare arms to appear
                with fists of flowers
                till in the air
                there comes the smell
                of calamus
                from wet, gummy stalks.

 

from Sour Grapes, 1921
WCW was good enough to let us into his local so much that we found his family there too; he espoused the search for poetry within your own fingernails, within your local yards and backstreets, within your private moments in front of your own mirror, within the loaned experience which can only be borrowed when you’ve brought up children and shown them the world in which you brought them to their own existence … rather than charging off for it rummaging about Europe’s kulture: he was an icognito prince, old WCW

 

 

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

air wormhole: THURSDAY by William Carlos Williams
blue wormhole: coterminalism – there is nothing happens by itself, / 070118
cars wormhole: ash leaves
green & William Carlos Williams wormhole: SPRING & LINES by William Carlos Williams
light wormhole: A Solitude by Denise Levertov
mist wormhole: that
smell wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – old George
streets wormhole: we held cold hands
sun wormhole: only
voices & water wormhole: What You Are by Roger McGough

 

Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – old George

Tags

1967, 7*, branches, breeze, brother, child, clouds, cuckoo, dust, earth, echo, Essex, green, hands, home, journey, land, lark, life, meadow, mind, pink, poem, retirement, scythe, shirt, Shropshire, silence, smell, speech, stone, time, wind, woodland, writing

                                old George

                long retired from land, unable to
                keep soil from his boots, continues
                working, earth and life, picking up

                branches and stones; the blades
                cut clean, men in the meadows
                sway to the rhythm of scythes,

                stems fall graceful to swathe and
                green aroma, the diminishing island
                cut to the last, magnified by

                silence, a lark high above the
                dust; the breezes will dry the
                stalks to rustle and the distant

                woods will echo – cuckoo; it is
                then the child places the building
                block on the nursery floor when

                there will be no time, day after
                day, save for forks of pitch and
                hands that burn pink and stalk

                of shirt and sweat, constant under
                minds of approaching storm cloud
                before the last journey home; old

                George had removed his jacket
                picking out fluff from the corners
                of a pocket, “…used to be my brother’s;

                lived in Shropshire … didn’t
                find no pound notes in it, just fluff,
                a few hay seeds,” flung them

                to the Essex wind – scattered
                poems and stacked essays,
                typed up and waiting to behold

 

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

 

 

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

branches wormhole: presence
breeze wormhole: chuckling
child wormhole: next unexpected step
clouds wormhole: that
echo wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Making Hay
green wormhole: PASTORAL by William Carlos Williams
hands & life & retirement wormhole: beguiled / desire
mind & writing wormhole: scintillating to mind’s content
pink & stone wormhole: TO A SOLITARY DISCIPLE by William Carlos Williams
silence & speech wormhole: new blue porsche
smell & time wormhole: LOVE SONG by William Carlos Williams
wind wormhole: TREES by William Carlos Williams

 

LOVE SONG by William Carlos Williams

Tags

1917, being, black, branches, curtains, dress, elm, house, love, sky, smell, song, time, voices, white, William Carlos Williams, windows

                      LOVE SONG

                Sweep the house clean,
                hang fresh curtains
                in the windows
                put on a new dress
                and come with me!
                The elm is scattering
                its little loaves
                of sweet smells
                from a white sky!

                Who shall hear of us
                in the time to come?
                Let him say there was
                a burst of fragrance
                from black branches.

 

from Al Que Quiere! 1917

some poems ride the air: they are about nothing much at all (of import to the nation), they don’t do anything, but they are so much more alive and enduring than the cleanest and enshrined momument; I suppose they renew each time they are read with evanescence and sniff …

 

 

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

being wormhole: all // are // none
black wormhole: I
branches wormhole: transferring
curtains wormhole: languidly close the portal
house wormhole: behind / glass walls and wan and hooded eye
love & time wormhole: PASTORAL by William Carlos Williams
sky wormhole: sometimes
smell wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Making Hay
voices wormhole: PASTORAL by William Carlos Williams
white wormhole: cowl
William Carlos Williams wormhole: SUMMER SONG by William Carlos Williams
windows wormhole: glancing up from the text / searching for ground …

 

The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Making Hay

Tags

1967, blackbird, branches, breeze, chaffinches, clouds, cuckoo, echo, fields, grass, green, hay, June, land, lark, linnets, Michael J Redford, scythe, silence, smell, soil, sun, talking, the Boats of Vallisneria, thrushes, tits, trees, wagtail, weather, work

Making Hay

“You’ll have a nice cut o’ hay here,” said George.   The wizened little old man, long since retired from the land, stood beside me in the gateway of Garden Field.   He has come to remove the debris that had fallen from the trees to prevent damage to the mower.   Like most retired land-workers he is unable to keep the soil of the fields from his boots, and one can find him in every village throughout the British Isles hedging, ditching, clearing odd corners of scrub with scythe and sickle and caring for the vicar’s garden.   To these men, there is an attraction so binding to the land, that to continue working thereon has become essential to their very existence.   It seems they draw the very essence of life direct from the soil, just as the unborn infant draws its life direct from its mother, and if this contact, this life-line is broken, so also is his life.   One has merely to talk with these old men for an hour to sense their affinity with and philosophy of the land, and I am convinced that it would quite literally kill many of them if they were to be taken from it.   An acquaintance once questioned the economics of employing these old ‘jobbers’ and suggested that it was merely a charitable act that enables the old men to feel useful, and I thought of old George ambling around the perimeter of Garden Field picking up dead branches and stones.   In the first instance the old man had given me half an hour of time to attend to other more pressing matters.   Secondly, his action of clearing the land of obstructions was quite possibly instrumental in preventing a broken mower knife or con-rod, and when taking into account the precarious weather conditions under which hay is made in this country, any delay could mean the difference between a field of good hay and a field of bad or maybe even a complete loss, and with good hay sometimes fetching £15 per ton and more, this could result in a considerable saving.   So what price an old man’s labour?

There is a great satisfaction in using a clean cutting tool, be it a pen-knife or a scythe.   Now unfortunately, the less harmonious clatter of a power driven mower has long since dimmed the sweet song of a scythe and men in the hay meadows no longer sway to its rhythm.   Nevertheless, there manifests within me a great sense of well-being each time I see the graceful stems fall into neat swathes as the mower encircles the ever diminishing island of standing green.   The pollen lifts and the wagtail follows close behind feeding upon the moths and gnats that are started into flight upon a day sweet with a green aroma. Soon comes the last sweep of the mower in the centre of the field.   It is an act full of purpose and symbolism that makes me hesitate before felling those last few stems.   It is I think, that the finality of the last cut brings about a sense of completeness, a completeness that is magnified by the silence when the mower has ceased to clatter and the tractor engine is switched off, when the only sound to be heard is the song of a lark out of sight, high above the dust laden air.

The following day, when the June sun has lifted the dew from the fields, the grass can be shaken up to let in the drying breezes, and it is towards the end of a good drying day that the green harvest begins to ‘rustle’ and emanates that exhilarating aroma of ‘making’ hay.   There are many jobs to be done on the farm some of which are dull and monotonous, and I must confess to a tendency of leaving such tasks to the very last minute.   But hay-making is not one of these jobs.   Even at the end of a hot, dry day of turning, tedding and windrowing, I reap a great deal of pleasure from strolling alone between the dry, fluffy rows, inhaling the richness, listening to the linnets, tits and chaffinches close at hand, and the distant echo of the cuckoo in the woods.   Also in the woods the Blackcap, much mistaken for the nightingale, sings sweetly at this hour and is a welcomed guest upon my solitude.   There are many such enchanting moments tucked away at odd intervals throughout the year, sandwiched between the bustle, toil and noise that nowadays fills most of our lives, and too often they pass unnoticed and without appreciation.   The baler is the transgressor that ends these few hours of peace at hay-making.   It is a great red monster that crashes into the calm, scaring the blackbirds and thrushes and littering the fields with bales of green, just as the child litters the nursery floor with his building blocks.

If there is one task on the farm nowadays that demands sweat and aching limbs, it is the pitching, carting and stacking of bales of hay.   No time can be wasted in bringing them home for should the weather change, the feeding value could be washed right out and hay made fit for only bedding.   Under a blazing July sun the throat becomes parched and the palms of the hands become calloused and shiny from gripping the pitch-fork.   Hasty swigs from a brown bottle concealed in the cool shade of a hedge ooze forth seconds later as sweat.   Hay particles stick to the body and gnats and flies buzz and bite. At times (if, for example, in a race against approaching storm clouds), the pace becomes so hectic that the sweat runs and blinds the eyes.   Seeds and pieces of hay fall into the shirt and make their way down to the trouser belt where they stick and prick and scratch each time the body is bent to life another bale.

This work, weather permitting, continues day after day, and to those involved it seems like eternity, but sooner or later the very last bale is heaved upon the trailer, and the last, slow journey home is made with swaying load and creaking ropes.

Last year, Garden Field was put aside for the cows and old George was helping me move the electric fence.   It was almost dinner time when we finished and we sat upon the headland whiling away the minutes in idle conversation.   He had removed his jacket and was picking out the fluff from the corners of a pocket.

“It used to be my brother’s,” he said of the jacket, “he lived in Shropshire but passed on a few weeks back, and as I’m the only one of the family left, I had all his bits and pieces sent here.”   He studied the jacket ruefully.   “Didn’t find no pound notes in it though, just a bit o’ fluff and a few hay seeds,” he said flinging them into the wind.   Now, as I stand staring at the bales stacked under the dutch barn, I find myself wondering how many stems of Shropshire grass there are within, and if left to ripen, how many seeds they would have produced.   I often stand and stare, much to the annoyance of those around me, and think my little thoughts, for little thoughts quite often lead to bigger ones.   This is, in fact, just how this essay came to be written.

 

read the collected work as it is published: here

 

 

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

blackbird wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
branches & green wormhole: Sheffield Park Gardens
breeze wormhole: 1964
clouds wormhole: and ‘naerrgh’ a mention of a seagull’s call
echo wormhole: with all love released
silence wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Working
smell wormhole: travelling // arrival
sun wormhole: tremule
talking wormhole: green and / luminant / to behold
trees wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – reaping
work wormhole: next unexpected step

 

travelling // arrival

Tags

2016, 9*, arrival, attention, awkward, black, blue, breathing, calves, Carol, clouds, co-ordinate, ears, eye, fields, groundlessness, hedge, horizon, identity, karma, leaves, letting go, notice, passing, sky, smell, teeth, thread, time, travelling, white, wind, wind turbines

                travelling – no theme

                when the wind blows
                leaves turn and follow like
                dislocated jazz-hands

                everything is parting
                and passing all around
                … me (is that the theme?)

                I can’t find what to
                think or notice; in the
                corner of my eye a

                small black creature
                keeps pace, stretched in
                leap over field, through

                hedge, unspite, imhindered,
                depossibly, gathering
                everything in disregard;

                bit between molars (for
                weeks, for days?) wedging
                teeth slightly awkward

                has just worked loose;
                there are skies, there,
                certainly, high, silky

                and whipped, and then
                blue-coagulated drifting
                like a fleet, like calves

                crossing fields ears
                waving, as wind blades
                heave beyond hill horizon

                I conjeal            myself
                in notice, relieved with a
                thread and co-ordinate

                where for to breathe
                again but having lost
                so much more that I

                never had; Carol shuts
                the Kindle and leans; I
                smell her warm head

                for miles – arrival

 

 

 

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

attention wormhole: before any writing
black & blue wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
breathing & groundlessness wormhole: is this it // all the time
Carol & clouds & sky wormhole: Christmas 2015
hedge wormhole: free
horizon & white wormhole: looking ahead
identity wormhole: without any buffet at all
leaves wormhole: Batgirl –
letting go wormhole: “I need help”
passing wormhole: I am not yet ready
smell wormhole: St. Edmund’s / Parish Church / Castleton
time wormhole: looking / ridiculous
travelling wormhole: Tara mantras
wind wormhole: after all

 

St. Edmund’s / Parish Church / Castleton

Tags

2013, 7*, black, blue, brass, Castleton, ceiling, church, metal, patience, silence, smell, sound, waiting, wood, writing

                                smell

                of centuried wood and polish
                misaligned and creaky and
                still held by metal twist brace
                with brass lamp-holders polished
                and blackening and spore
                of pew-bolster-cushions patient
                and attentive waiting

                                silently

                but for the crease and crankle
                of the notepad as I write these
                lines high among the rafters
                of the powder-blue ceiling

                                St. Edmund’s
                                Parish Church
                                Castleton

 

 

 

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

black wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams
blue & Castleton wormhole: lesson from watching two crane flies work the evening / skating across the panes flying and pushing legs grappling / the glass crossing repulsive over themselves and clinging akimbo / for a rest until lifeless just to get their stickly bodies through to the light
church wormhole: and that’s where I are
silence wormhole: 1968 – orange sand and mauve mist
smell wormhole: too much in arrival
waiting wormhole: greedy
wood wormhole: prelude: // travel
writing wormhole: the goldilocks stance

 

too much in arrival

Tags

2*, 2013, anxiety, arrival, being, cafe, coffee, conservatory, driving, smell, sun, travelling

                     too much in arrival

                     was it the sun-washed
                     matching placemats in
                     the café conservatory

                     or the sharp linger of
                     nervous armpit (not
                     mine) the coffee or the

                     eighty mile drive here
                     that make it impossible
                     to relax my forehead?

 

 

 

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

anxiety wormhole: to rescue something
being wormhole: wasted –
coffee & travelling wormhole: prelude: // travel
conservatory wormhole: while
smell wormhole: lost and city ground
sun wormhole: somewhere

 

lost and city ground

Tags

2013, 4*, childhood, city, Eglinton Hill, flowers, garden, ground, Plumstead, smell, speech, weeds

                lost and city ground

                ah, the weeds and wildflowers
                overgrown and gummy
                in the ground smells just a little

                acrid before ‘come in from
                the garden, dear, you’ll get
                all dirty; it’s dinner soon’

 

written in response to one of my favourite bloggers who … hasn’t for more than three years now: https://dimsumhearts.wordpress.com/2011/02/26/be-an-architect/

 

 

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

childhood & Eglinton Hill wormhole: to rescue something
city wormhole: 1968
garden wormhole: within
Plumstead wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams
smell wormhole: the // orange rose
speech wormhole: Salisbury Cathedral // suspended in everything

 

the // orange rose

Tags

2015, 7*, being, clouds, communication, creativity, flag, Herstmonceux Castle, listening, metaphor, orange, passing, patience, realisation, rose, sculpture, smell, stone, talking, thinking, time, writing

                we talked, you have to listen
                to the stone, said the sculptor,

                you have to have the patience to
                start and the patience to stop;

                like working with a blank page,
                I said; “but the page was not

                formed by weight of time,” I
                thought, cleverly doing myself

                out of a metaphor; I wandered
                on and stopped to smell the

                orange rose and noticed the
                clouds drift heavy and close

                above the nations’ flags, to
                realise I was wrong to equate

                the stone with paper …

 

the second of four in the Herstmonceux Triptych (uh oh); on this day Hilary Manuhwa was exhibiting his works in the grounds of the castle; we had a lovely scattery conversation under the windy trees; have a look at cultureinstone if you are interested

 

 

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

being & stone wormhole: may the supreme and precious jewel bodhichitta … // … take birth where it has not yet done so … // … where it has taken birth may it not decrease … // … but may it increase infinitely
clouds & passing wormhole: occa / s / i // o / n / a // l // l // y
communication & time wormhole: pine // gladioli // [&] wisteria
creativity wormhole: No
listening wormhole: returning home handsome
orange wormhole: 1968 – orange sand and mauve mist
realisation wormhole: comfy
smell wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams
talking wormhole: to rescue something
thinking wormhole: was there a moon / on the alleyway wall / confused in front of / the city skyline?
writing wormhole: holiday