looking hard enough

My first memory of Wales is an aural one. My brother and I were evacuated during the war and arrived late at night in Trelewis, a little mining village by the Rhonda Valley. It was too dark to see anything of our surroundings, not that we cared much anyway for the winter’s journey had made us far too tired.

It was the sound of rocks that woke me early the following morning. Having always lived in London, I had rarely heard their raucous tones, certainly not in such great numbers. I could see from a narrow strip of sky between the curtains that the clouds of the previous day had been swept away. At first I was undecided as to whether the colour of the sky was grey or a pale, misty blue, but as the minutes ticked by, it became evident that the heavens were clear. I glanced across at my brother in the next bed. He was still and fast asleep. Without moving my head I took in the details of the room that had come to light. There was a small wooden cross on the wall opposite and behind the door a small cupboard where, presumably, we were to keep our clothes and the few toys we had bought with us. Beneath the window was a long wooden chest draped with a green satin runner, the secrets of which we were to discover later. Apart from the two beds in which my brother and I were sleeping, there were no other items of furniture in the room.

I glanced at the bed beside me once more and again at the curtained window. How desperate I was to see what lay beyond. Should I wake my brother or should I let him sleep? The minutes ticked slowly by. Then slowly he turned over towards me. His eyes were open – he too had been looking at the window. Alan and I had always been very close as brothers, often both doing the same thing simultaneously, each seeming to know what the other is about to do. Our eyes met for a brief second and without a word being spoken, we slid from our beds and crossed to the window. Had an observer been looking at the rear of 9 Richards Terrace at seven o’clock that crisp winter’s morn, he would have seen the curtains slowly part and two small faces peer out with large apprehensive eyes.

We were almost on a level with the hills opposite. In this part of the country the Welsh mountains do not present a dramatic outline to the sky; here, they are soft and rolling, rather like the South Downs on a much larger scale. The hills were quite bare, void of trees, fields and hedgerows, and only one house stood there, square and lonely. A paddock surrounded by a dry stone wall contained three ponies that tossed their heads in the early morning sun. One wall of the paddock continued down into the valley to disappear behind a black, tower-like structure topped by two of the most enormous wheels I had ever seen. From these, thick black cables ran down into a blackened building at the rear. Everything was black. The ground, over which ran a network of miniature railway lines and trucks was black; all buildings, shacks and huts dotted about were black; blackness was heaped everywhere.

Now we were conscious of other noises. The distant rattle of shunting trucks and a continuous hissing sound of escaping steam. Then the faint clip-clop of horses’ hooves became noticeable from the High Street below, and there appeared for a brief second between the houses a yellow float laden with clanking milk churns pulled by a big brown horse. The bare hills, the colliery, the grey slate roofs of the village below and the screech of the rooks above, stirred within us a mixture of emotions, emotions that encompassed apprehension, expectation, excitement, loneliness, sadness; and even today, whenever I hear rooks calling on a winter’s morn, whenever I hear the rattle of the shunter’s yard or the sound of newly-shod hooves upon a hard road, I am back once more in Trelewis. But no longer does loneliness feature in the memory now for I have many dear friends there. No more apprehension or sadness, for the Welsh hills have afforded me much happiness and security, and beauty can now be seen in that which at one time appeared ugly. Now, the memory is warm with affection for those sincere people and there is a longing to be among those stony, fern-covered hills once more.

As we descended the stairs later that morning for breakfast, the smell of polish was evident. Everything shone. The lino on the stairs had a shine so deep that I grasped the bannister tightly for support for fear that I should slip, and the brass fender in the living room glowed with the intensity of the sun. The aroma of breakfast sizzling on the big black hob was wafted through the kitchen door together with the aroma of a hitherto unknown delicacy called a Welsh Cake.

The people in that remote little mining village threw open their doors and welcomed us into their houses. Such was their nature that we, who could justly be called ‘foreigners’, became in a very short time, part of them and their community. How many London mothers, I wonder, have cause to be grateful for the care and love lavished on their offspring by strangers in a far-off country.

The countryside behind the village differed from the great hills on the other side of the valley. Here, there were dairy farms. Hedgerows bound in small fields and cows grazed to the accompaniment of pure crystal streams that tumbled from the mountains further up the valley. It is in these surroundings I feel sure, that I first became aware of the beauty around me. I became conscious of a physical and mental freedom that could not exist in London. Here, one could be alone, one could run and jump and roll in the grass without fear of reprisal, and high upon Wineberry Mountain on the other side of the valley, one could race the winds for miles before a fence or even a dry stone wall would be encountered. Here on the heights, one can shout with full voice, yet it will be lost upon the wind. Only a stray sheep will turn its head and the bracken will dip and ripple to the horizon like waves upon the sea. Up here the ceaseless wind is the ethereal reincarnation of Dionysus, urging one to drink from him and become drunk with freedom.

read the collected work as it is published: here

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

beauty & clouds & grey & hedge & passing & smell & valley wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Rain
bedroom wormhole: LIGHT HEARTED WILLIAM by William Carlos Williams
black & horizon wormhole: slight sneer
blue & faces wormhole: 11/1 by William Carlos Williams
brown wormhole: The Diligence at Louveciennes, 1870
curtains wormhole: ‘… plane is upright …’
eyes & love wormhole: light of all interaction
green wormhole: 10/22 by William Carlos Williams
hills wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – I took my camera into the fields
house wormhole: quietly in my quiet house
identity & wind wormhole: c’mon – keep up
kitchen wormhole: 10/28 ‘On hot days …’ by William Carlos Williams
London wormhole: {reading right to left}
morning & sky wormhole: then
mother wormhole: in deed
roof & windows wormhole: THE ATTIC WHICH IS DESIRE: by William Carlos Williams
sleep & time wormhole: looking for the right exit
sound wormhole: window
stone & sun wormhole: boiled spangle with soft centre
travelling wormhole: travelling / back
walls wormhole: “And anger it is that lays in ruins / every kind of mental goodness.”
waves wormhole: Valentine’s Day 2019
yellow wormhole: 10/28 ‘in this strong light …’ by William Carlos Williams

The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Rain

20 Thursday Jun 2019

Posted by m lewis redford in announcements

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

ash, beauty, bridge, clouds, consciousness, cottage, dawn, eyes, garden, gazing, gold, grass, grey, hedge, hill, land, leaves, light, memory, Michael J Redford, mist, morning, passing, petunia, quiet, radio, rain, reflection, river, roads, silence, silver, sky, skyline, smell, sound, speech, starlings, stillness, stone, summer, sun, sycamore, the Boats of Vallisneria, trees, valley, village, water, weather, willow, writing

Rain

“The morning will be overcast with frequent showers. They will be heavy at times in the south east but brighter weather will follow later from the west …”

Thus spake the oracle from the radio early one summer morning casting his own black cloud over the hearts of many. I was a keen cyclist in my teens and at many a weekend my schoolmate and I would grease up our cycles and head for the open road. Shoreham was our target this particular day but the voice of doom did not quell our enthusiasm. The weather was kind to us on the way down with the sun occasionally breaking through the gloom above to splash a little watery light on the road ahead and we arrived on the outskirts of the village at around nine o’clock. Passing Samuel Palmer’s old cottage we came upon the bridge and dismounted. After a strenuous exercise, it is a delight to lean upon a bridge and gaze upon the waters emerging from beneath one’s feet. The flow catches the eye and lifts it slowly into the distance and the senses relax to the accompaniment of its music. There weren’t many gnats and midges at that time of day, but those that were about were flying very low indeed. Certainly there was rain about and it wasn’t very far off either for we could just detect the faint scent of it even above the mass of water at our feet. Not wishing to miss any of its quiet charm, we walked our bicycles through the village, and as the sky grew heavy above us, my thoughts turned to my companion’s pet tortoise Horace who had been extremely active earlier that morning, this being a sure sign of approaching rain. We turned down the hill past the Crown Hotel, on past the water mill which was then a tea house (I believe it is now a private dwelling) and out onto the banks of the Darenth.

A damp mist had filtered through the trees on the hill opposite and the grey light had transmuted the upturned leaves of ash and sycamore into flecks of silver that hung without movement in the stillness of the impending downpour. An old weeping willow, pollarded of its crowning glory, leaned out from the bank across the water and as I peered into its dark reflection a crayfish, startled by the leviathan that reared above it, scuttled beneath the smooth stones. As I gazed, the picture was suddenly distorted. A raindrop had followed immediately by another and yet another and soon I was no longer able to fathom the depths. We donned our capes, drew up our knees and huddled against the tree like two diminutive bell tents. Cozy in our little dry islands, the raindrops drummed upon our capes in anger and hissed at us from the river turning it into a boiling cauldron. The mist that had settled among the trees on the hill opposite had drifted on making way for a great veil of rain that spanned the skyline in graceful folds – a grey but beautiful replica of the Aurora Borealis.

As the curtain drifted slowly by, the day grew appreciably lighter and the deluge eased to a steady drizzle. Soon after, the clouds broke a little, and a shaft of pure gold struck the hills, becoming wider at its base as it raced swiftly down the valley. Then the rain ceased as quickly as it had begun and silence, the ethereal beauty of which is always magnified when the rains are over, tumbled into the valley. We sat in silence beside the bubbling waters and for several minutes we watched its breathless pursuit of the shaft of gold.

It is within such a quietude that I sit now jotting down these notes. This morning was a grey but clean smelling morning upon which the hedgerow leaves quivered. It had been raining all night but had stopped just as dawn broke, leaving behind a miscellany of drips and drops, musical and echoing. Each blade of grass had its tip bent by a raindrop and the clothes line was a string of pearls waiting to be spilled upon the lawn by the quick grasp of a starling’s feet. By mid-morning the low cloud had dispersed and great mountains of summer cumulus were heaped about the sky. It was my intention this morning to tackle one or two gardening chores that had been neglected but due to a tiny and insignificant happening, these have yet to be done. As I passed the petunia bed, I bent to pick up an old seed packet that had appeared and my sleeve touched a petunia leaf. Upon this leaf there were three rain drops, and as the leaf was set in motion, the three tiny drops rushed towards one another and merged into one large globule that trembled precariously in the centre of the leaf before rolling off the edge and disappearing into the soil. This tiny happening caused my mind to leap back across the years to remember once more a particular drop of water out of all the millions that must have fallen that day at Shoreham; a single drop of water that has long since been returned to Poseidon from whence it came. We were walking back through the village when we paused awhile beside a cottage garden to discuss our plans. The clouds were now few and the sun was strong in the cleansed sky drawing out the sweet scent of purity from the land. Suddenly, a spark of light leapt from the ground and pierced my eye. So bright was it that it might well have been of solid substance, for it so dazzled the eye that it quite took the breath from me. I stooped to discover the origin of this manifestation and there, within the cupped hands of a lupin leaf was a tiny trembling rain drop. It was a perfect globe clearer than crystal; a gem that would have done justice to the diadem of the most illustrious of monarchs.

So it is that my gardening chores for today have once more been neglected. A rain drop fell from a leaf and in that single drop a flood of memories, memories I felt I had to record, for – they had been pushed so far below the plane of consciousness, that I was afraid they would never have come to the fore again.

read the collected work as it is published: here

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

beauty & dawn & rain & silence wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Sky
bridge wormhole: Great Bridge, Rouen, 1896
clouds & passing wormhole: slight sneer
eyes wormhole: mandala offering
garden wormhole: A Corner of the Garden at the Hermitage, 1877
gold & grey & leaves & sun & trees wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – I took my camera into the fields
hedge wormhole: it’s / not what you do or what you say / if it ain’t got that swing
light & river wormhole: the Bodhisattva set out / for the Seat of Awakening
mist & morning & sound wormhole: 10/30 by William Carlos Williams
quiet wormhole: quietly in my quiet house
radio wormhole: within
reflection wormhole: in turgid reflection
roads & silver wormhole: Hastings: neither all or nothing
sky & speech & writing wormhole: 11/1 by William Carlos Williams
skyline wormhole: Boulevarde Montmartre, Evening Sun, 1879 // Boulevarde Montmartre at Night, 1879
smell wormhole: prose piece 2 from POEMS 1927 by William Carlos Williams
stillness wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – pigs
stone wormhole: “And anger it is that lays in ruins / every kind of mental goodness.”
water wormhole: Valentine’s Day 2019

prose piece 2 from POEMS 1927 by William Carlos Williams

21 Thursday Feb 2019

Posted by m lewis redford in announcements

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

1927, 7*, air, April, aspiration, bed, birds, breathing, cemetry, cherries, Christian Science, city, death, elderberry, grandmother, house, kiss, laughing, love, memory, sea, smell, speech, Spring, summer, talking, William Carlos Williams, wine

When I think how my grandmother flirted with me I often wonder why I have not been attracted by women of her type. SHE was a devil if ever there was one. When she’d move into a neighborhood she’d go out and clean it up, tonguewise. She’d lay ’em out, male and female – and then sit back in peace to her mysterious memories and awkward aspirations toward heaven and the hold she’d have still on the world and its accessories. She buried the keg of elderberry wine under the side of the house, and the stuff she’d eat, not to waste it, would make you shudder. This was especially after she’d gone nearly blind and had taken up Christian Science so that you couldn’t trust her. Boy, them was the days. And the rags she used to wipe the dishes on when she’d have the family up to a meal in her shack on the shore over the Fourth. Baby, I can still see Pop wiping his knife on the edge of the tablecloth – or something, before he’d use it. But talk was her best weapon, she could lay you an argument like a steel fence and you might try to get through it for a day or a week or till doomsday and there she’d be still back of it laughing at you. The only fault she confessed to was a lack of self-assertion. She was right too. She liked no society, no gadding – except on some wild pretext, such as a fascination with the bicycle at sixty. She fell flat with the handle in one eye, but she did it, bloomers and all. Yet she– The city stifled her, she could not wait for the spring. School or no school (they suffered for it later) out she would yank the two grandkids and off she’s track it for the shore, April to snowfall there she’d make her stand. Nobody could budge her, not even old man Nolan who had his wife eating out of his hand, big and burly as she was. He never got the best of Emily. That was it, she had it. She wanted to be out, away, alone, in the air, by the sea, breathing it in. She’d lie in the water’s edge every summer’s day till she was eighty. Sometimes she’d be so weak, all alone there, she couldn’t get up with her wet rags dragging on her. She’d turn blue with the effort to lift herself on her hands and knees, laughing self consciously the while but doing it, doing it– She’d envy the birds the cherries they’d eat, or she’d sit and watch them playing and go get crumbs to throw them, or half scrape a fish the boys would be too lazy to clean, disgusted with its smallness– Lord what a bed she’d sleep in! I would carry you away with what it had in it. When she’d come to kiss you, you’d want to but you’d go easy and there’d be a good smell out of her scalp and up her neck– She liked me, I’d stand up and fight her by the day trying to get her to have clean dish rags or whatever it would be – some moral issue. All she wanted was to be alone and to have her quiet way. She had it. And love. She wanted that, hot food into the grave, you couldn’t get her without it. Took my father up to the cemetery the night before he married and made him promise her things over the grave of his dead sister. God pardon her for it.

from Poems, 1927
a most vibrant biographical sketch of a person; I know her so well just from this; I wish biographical sketches of famous people were like this – sinewy fibres of life that tell no story, but reveal all that you need to know; and straight-forward language that doesn’t beguile but nonetheless jabs out into the universe

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

air & William Carlos Williams wormhole: YOUNG SYCAMORE by William Carlos Williams
birds wormhole: I don’t need to go out / onto the balcony to see behind me / to know what’s going on
breathing wormhole: it’s / not what you do or what you say / if it ain’t got that swing
city wormhole: THE GREAT FIGURE by William Carlos Williams
death wormhole: on facing the Have
house wormhole: The Diligence at Louveciennes, 1870
love wormhole: and … // … sound
sea wormhole: Hastings: neither all or nothing
smell wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – With Pigs
speech wormhole: between
Spring wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – pageant of the trees
talking wormhole: ‘a blacknight fitted perfectly …’

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

20 Thursday Sep 2018

Posted by m lewis redford in announcements

≈ Leave a comment

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

BLUEFLAGS by William Carlos Williams

15 Saturday Sep 2018

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ Leave a comment

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
blossom wormhole: SPRING & LINES 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

24 Friday Aug 2018

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

2018, 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

11 Wednesday Jul 2018

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ Leave a comment

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

10 Saturday Mar 2018

Posted by m lewis redford in announcements

≈ Leave a comment

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