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Recent Work
War Baby
A bolt of dove-grey silk ruffles the early morning sky then slides away.
The ice-skate tracks of aircraft trails criss-cross each other, soften and diffuse to lambswool curls.
A sheep rolls on its back like a cob set free of its harness, then rights itself and falls on its knees to graze the downland scrub.
My heartbeat tread kicks out sequestered Sunday lines : ‘And all the blue ethereal sky’. Just one small cloud, stretched to a sea-snake`s wily shape, swims on to drink its fill and spill a shock of summer rain.
Around my head a fat bee`s Spitfire whine, while in among the dusty weeds of summer bright-eyed poppies bay for blood.
Fox Cry
A bark comes nothing near it – more a strangled cry of agony calling me to the open window this June night.
I mistake it for human suffering – raw anguish at some deathly news, lungs` dreadful bellows coughing out the heart.
Then in the intervals I hear faint echoes: its mate is quartering the cemetery, panicked, stopping with pricked ears to catch the call and set its compass straight.
After so long, I hadn`t made the connection: sad, empty wings spread on the grass day after day. First blackbirds then, with empty bellies growling, the hunt`s stepped up. Pied quill, a shimmering blue-green chevron - magpie, jay – give the game away.
Smoking is Bad
Smoking is bad smoking will kill you but just for a moment catching a glimpse of the boy in the Elvis blue-jeans, the white Brando T-shirt tight round his pecs, I want the fine smoke to drift to my nostrils, remind me of Dad, remind me of home long before smoking was bad. The Ash-tree breaks its buds
Mid-winter. Time freezes. The garden static sticks, the soil sullen, iron-ugly.
I draw breath, hold it, wait.
And this year I caught it – a breeze quickens, the stopped clock of nature resumes its measured tick, treads and plods until – time tricks again, jumps, races, bounds unbound.
From my red sofa my eyes swing to the window, framing a young ash, thick with bud. I glance - and seconds later, glance again. The buds are stirring, nudging, pushing. Each time I look they grow, dilate, open like hands struggling to contain a spill of pebbles as another and another splays them apart. A heartbeat later flowers froth on every fuzzy twig. The Rector suggests we adopt a grave
The churchyard tumbles down the grassy slope, headstones tilting in a mad crones’ dance. It’s out of hand, the gardener’s overworked, so we should all adopt a grave.
Whose shall I choose? A young man “killed by accident” down on the coast? The grim Victorian row of spiked and rusty rails hammering out a smithy’s peal of grief? Nine children dead.
A nest of trefoil, plantain, pimpernel cups a small grey stone. I choose it for its enigmatic rune: “Benjamin the Ruler”. But knife and trowel hang loosely in my hand, unable to disturb the braided strands, fine grasses, petalled stars singing to the high and vaulted sky.  Contemplating ‘The Nativity, at Night’ by Geertgen tot Sint Jans
December brings my Advent rituals: a fat church candle lit each afternoon, Bach’s cantatas played in darkness, the creased old calendar whose paper windows won’t stay shut, and next to it, my treasured dark Nativity – a post-card clamped in glass.
Her face a simple moon, high-browed, so lightly touched with features she seems a faded doll. Thin eyebrows lift, her mouth an O of wonder, pale hands, thumbs folded, fingertips just joined, create a triangle of night.
The baby, naked in his wooden crib, sparkles with light. Electric shocks fly upward - rain reversed. Five angel-marionettes peep from the wings, unruly amber hair framing their faces. Another, floating high beyond the stable beams lights up a landscape - hillside, shepherds, sheep.
There`s more – Joseph, thickly bearded, stands in the shadows, looks at the child he must cherish, knowing it`s not his own. And half obscured by night and half-revealed a milky ox, wide-eyed and mild, blows with scented breath, warms the tiny child.
But closer to the crib than all of these, a donkey gravely stands and waits for that far-off and palm-strewn day – hot and noisy, bitter-sweet.
In this small card – my Christmas icon - I find the chiaroscuro of my faith and keep it by me all the winter long. |
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