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.

Day 18,627

No fanfare, flags, no big parade;
A blanket ban on brouhaha

At my insistence:
Not my style.

Still, dutifully
I cast back a weary eye and jagged mind

Rewind the rusting, ever-running clock,
Review and reconsider;

And with a certain sadness
But no surprise at all

Discover things are more or less
Exactly as I left them.

 
 

Self-appraisal

I want to write
Not to have written.
Better to bite
Than to get bitten.
Forget I ran:
See how I run;
What counts is can
Not could have done.
It’s about the ride
Not where you’ve ridden;
When you’ve nothing to hide
Nothing gets hidden.

For all I’ve seen,
What am I seeing?
So much I’ve been
What am I being?
The one who makes
Or one who made
Wrong calls, mistakes
A mark, the grade?
Time to look ahead
Not back, because
The older I get
The better I was.

Don’t need to know

the future:
Just that
There might be one;
What happens next:
Just that
I am strong enough.
What I could become:
Just that
I can change;
Where I’ll lay my hat:
Just that
Somewhere is home;
Who is left:
Just that
Love endures;
Or how and where this ends:
Just that
It too shall pass.

Sonnet: Flight

 

I walked the woods, where Spring at last bestirred
Herself with bright abandon. All around
Bluebells and windflowers gleamed, and every bird
Rejoiced in lusty song. Then came the sound
Of angry scolding overhead: a coarse
And ragged band of brigands in full cry
As one by one, they swooped and swirled to force
The noble, broad-winged buzzard from their sky.
And thus when I, too, seek release in flight
Or silent solitude, the world’s dark woes
Rise up in loud pursuit, grant no respite
And crowd in, mobbing me like churlish crows.
How many years and miles before I find
A place to rest to my weary heart and mind?

 

 

Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary last Saturday has led to this sudden outbreak of sonnets; old and familiar ground, I know, but it’s still my favourite form to work with, and just feels right at this time of year. That said, spring is showing recidivist tendencies this week, with a bitter northerly pegging temperatures in single digits (C) and leaving the flowers  wondering if they’ve accidentally skipped a few pages in their diaries. N.

Lottery of life

If I
were to win
eighty-seven million
tomorrow night
I honestly wouldn’t know
what to do with it all

(Or at least
not beyond
the first two hundred
grand or so).

My big win
would be
a simpler world
where I could get by
without needing
so much as a twenty

And just be left alone

to
 build
  fix
   make
    mix
     plant
      reap
       find
        keep
       plough
      sow
     think
    know
   cut
  burn
 live
learn
everything
myself.

So –

what kind of odds
would you give me
on that?

 

 

One shot

Life
Is not a rehearsal.

It’s an audition

From the moment heaven gives us
The nod to begin
We’re out there, unaccompanied,
With no chance to start again.

Our first notes
Shrill, unformed
Born of ancient dread, defiance
And bewilderment.

If they do not stop us
We go on
Interpreting the score
The best we can

Our performance measured
Judged, observed
Endlessly picked over
Until our very bones are all laid bare.

And all the while
The threat, unsaid,
Of what befalls if we are not
Note-perfect.

We play our hearts out
Wringing every drop from every line
Hoping, pleading
It’s what they want to hear

Always striving
To please the panel
Land the part
Make the grade.

Until the last cadenza
And the long diminuendo
That ends in breathless silence
Standing alone on stage
Wondering if we did enough
And being told

We’ll let you know.

 

 

Paterfamilias

I have a terror
Of turning into
My father.

A visceral, mortal
Lyingawakeatthreeinthemorning
Dread of plaid flannel shirts
Soft shoes, drawstring waistbands
Feeling the cold
Declaring they don’t
Write them or make them
Like that any more
Trying to hold conversations
In buttery fingers
Wondering where
All these cars came from
And why are they going so fast
Remembering when
It was all trees here
And staring at this screen
Helplessly demanding
What in God’s name
Does any of it mean.

But since I’ll never be
The one with the toolbox
And the strong, quick hands
The one with the shed
Full of jars of just what you’ve been looking for
The one who always has time
To be counsellor, confidant,
Co-conspirator, confessor
The one you have only to ask
And for whom nothing
Is too much trouble
The one who remains calm
And unfailingly finds the right words
When it’s all gone horribly wrong

I have nothing to fear
And everything.

Vanishing act

How I long
To stay lost;
Unheard, unseen,
All-but forgotten;
Off the chart
And out of time.

Walking, hidden
In some deep hollow of the hills
Among old oaks
Or way beyond
The low-tide line
Where none but the gulls and wild winds go.

Wilfully mislay myself;
Step off the road,
Rip the map into a thousand shreds
And watch them spin away.
Cut the line
And all the ties that bind.

No more words;
Just thoughts and birdsong, breeze and sun.
Nothing moving faster than the clouds,
No voices but the trees’ deliberations.
Only the shadows to show the hour;
Nothing to do, and all day to do it in.

Whatever Green

We’re painting her bedroom. The little-girl pink
That she’s had on her walls ever since she was six
Has to go, we’ve been told. But it seems they don’t mix
Shades that truly reflect how fourteen-year-olds think.

There’s an ocean of blues and a wide yawn of beige:
Peach, magnolia, lavender, calicos, creams.
Way too placid and pale for her dramas and dreams;
Far too subtle and soft for this high-contrast age.

We need tones more in tune with our turbulent teen:
Let’s have Coffee Stain skirtings, the door Dark Despair;
An Apple White ceiling, one wall Gothic Nightmare,
All the others a deep shade of Whatever Green.

Slap on Intense Emotions with Angst as a base:
A tin of Wild Hormones stirred up with a stick;
Then a bucket of Drama Queen – lay it on thick –
And to finish, a top coat of Personal Space.

But she blazes with colours that they’ll never sell:
The glow of her temper, the gleam in her eye.
She’s our gold, our red sunset, the blue in our sky.
In her rainbow’s a covenant. And all will be well.