The book I’d like to read has not been written;
The tune I want to hear has not been played.
No painting is precisely as I’d wish it;
My perfect movie is, as yet, unmade.
What song would soothe my ear now, there’s no telling;
No architect’s creation holds my gaze;
I fear my feet would find no fun in dancing;
No appetite for even Shakespeare’s plays.
And what of my own kindred: do the poets
Have powers to aid me in these fevered times?
Perhaps I might discover some great secret
Concealed in their cadences and rhymes.
For poets speak of love and truth and beauty;
Show us a new and grand reality.
A vision of a world unspoiled, unburdened;
Not as it is, but as it ought to be.
And yet I see no promise of redemption:
All things are tainted by the touch of hands
Intent on harm and hurt; no thought of making
But only breaking, ruining our lands.
And there’s no comfort in the old religions
No hope in our so-called democracy:
And even at the bottom of a bottle
There’s no long-term solution I can see.
So I will go out early in the morning
Ride through the country, where I hope to find
A truth no human art has yet imparted
To my world-weary heart and troubled mind.
Nature
A’ bheinn mhòr
These are my terms. I am. Have always been.
Foundation of all things; bones of the earth.
No number for the ages I have seen;
To ancient fires and ice I owe my birth.
I suffer you to stumble up my slopes
To brave my bogs and burns, my sudden squalls.
I will indulge the crampons, axes, ropes
With which you arm yourself to storm my walls.
But I will not assist or lend you aid
When storm clouds break upon you and the snow
Screams in. You own the choices you have made;
I stand impartial, neither friend nor foe.
And when the wind and wet conspire to tear
Your trembling fingers from their fragile hold
I do not weep, rejoice, laugh or despair;
Dispassionate, I watch events unfold.
And should you overcome all things, succeed
And stand upon my peak in victory
I offer no opinion on the deed:
Your gain and loss are all the same to me.
I have no truth, no answers. You will find
Them in yourself alone. I am the place
Where you may dare the darkness in your mind
And meet your strengths and frailties face to face.
All things must pass; and yet I shall endure.
The world may change, but I will always be.
When doubt and chaos reign, I still stand sure.
When truth is hard to find, remember me.
For Burns Night: inspired by our trip to the Scottish Highlands last year. Scotland’s mountains aren’t high by world standards but they’re rugged, remote and can be tricky to navigate; combine that with their notoriously fickle, often brutal weather and they’re definitely not to be trifled with. The image shows Ben Loyal, a magnificent Munro in the far north: the title is Scots Gaelic for ‘the great mountain’.
Vulpine
By field and farmyard Shaw, copse and spinney Bridleway and holloway I am Fox. By garden and playground Twitten and cul-de-sac Bypass and underpass I am Fox. By seeking and scavenging Raiding and thieving Nourished and famished I am Fox. By swiftness and subtlety Stealthy and shadowy Running and cunning I am Fox. By covert and country Hounds, horn and hunters Followed and swallowed I am Fox. By midnight and daylight Highways and byways Glances and chances I am Fox. By legend and fable Knowledge and hearsay Neighbour and stranger I am Fox. By adapting and enduring Shifting and drifting Thriving and surviving I am Fox.
Shepherd’s warning
Once, when young
I would have scanned this morning sky
And from its rose-and-copper conflagration
Taken counsel
Then a waterproof to work.
Now, and older
I gaze upon a fevered dawn
Alert to all the fires breaking out
And wonder if I am the only one
Who hears and heeds the warning.
Outlook
My father mentioned
once, apropos of nothing,
that in this place
he’d lived in thirty years
this view
was his favourite.
Over the churchyard wall
across five miles of fields and hedges
trees so dense no house or road breaks in
and ending in a high green hill
its slopes soft now but ever scarred
by centuries of working.
And still, we never sat, we two
on this old weathered bench
warmed by an autumn sun
and gazed on it together.
And now, I think, perhaps
we never will.
Lowlights
The low sun glowers –
a great heavy-lidded eye
glaring from a tumbling mass of restless air;
a fierce, begrudging, scornful gaze
that does not light the day to come
but only drives the shadows deeper.
Equinox
A radiant rising
In readiness for a gilded mourning.
For a fraction of a fraction of a second
Night and day will stand
Precisely aligned
Perfectly opposed;
The season a bright gold penny
Balanced on its edge.
And in the fraction of a fraction that follows
We start the long drop into dark
From which we wonder
If we will ever emerge
And if we do
What kind of world we’ll find.
So I let our falling star
Copperplate my limbs and face
Breathe the newly sharpened air
Allow myself one more glance back;
The last day of a summer
That never truly was.
Wise words
All voices mute. All books closed.
And so I took myself into the hills
Wandered among the woods and fields
To tap the wisdom of the world.
Seek my silence, said the land. Breathe my air.
Watch the shadows cross my face, the trees bend with the wind.
Understand my deeper workings
But never let your knowledge close the door on wonder.
Follow the roll of stars and seasons,
The great wheel turning in the earth.
Plough, sow and harvest; but guard the goodness in you.
The sin is not in lying fallow, but working gifted ground to dust.
Feel my bones beneath your feet. Be that bulwark for those you love.
And as time and fortune wear and shape you
Be shot through with truths as hard as flints
That strike sparks, blunt blades, outlast events and weather.
God’s acre
As a man
Schooled in science
Raised on reason
And living in such times
I have my doubts.
So tell me
What impulse drives me
To seek solace here,
In God’s own acre,
Among his departed faithful;
What comfort can I hope to find
In ancient stones, knapped, dressed and chiselled
To the glory of one
Whose face seems turned away
And mighty arm withheld.
Habit, inculcation,
One last, frayed strand that will not break;
Something draws me to this place
And I find peace, out here, under heaven
If still not yet inside.
Plein air, St Peter’s Church, Firle, East Sussex
A charm against wanton destruction
I cannot stop you tearing up the land;
Turn back the clock or stay your heedless hand;
No word of mine can still your crushing wheels;
My flesh and bone no match for your cold steel.
But what I can, I’ll do. And so I lay
This charm upon you and your deeds this day.
From sullied soil, let briar and bramble spring –
Let thistle burn, thorn scratch and nettle sting;
And when the summer sun warms earth and sky,
Come, adders, sharp of fang and cold of eye.
In every vehicle that you blithely ride
Let spiders big as saucers now reside;
And in the cabin where you take your rest
Bid hordes of wicked hornets build their nest.
Then let it rain and churn the clay to mire
To grab and grip and clog each helpless tyre;
And when the cries of rook-bands fill the air
May you hear mocking laughter everywhere.
Now let this doom hang heavy round your necks;
A right reward for him who rips and wrecks
Without regard or care. My rhyme is done.
But not the charm. Its work has just begun.
Gonecycling (again) 