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Spring Springing, Sprung
The Great Unfurling
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Potted hydrangea upon a windowsill
Sets forth fresh leaves: tender, verdant
Sheets break out along dry sticks, fragile.
I daily watch them form as March marches.
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Granted the gift of infinity of seconds,
In observation, I wish to break out,
Past the patio to spend
Spring beyond, experience
Every plant’s rebirth and blossoming,
To miss not this great unwinding,
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From forest floor, wild asparagus and
Ferns unfurling, breaking forth
Each bud, young leaves extending,
Spreading, fat fingered
Fronds from chestnut trunks;
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Witness every sprig of speedwell,
Burst of buttercups,
Spray of daisies, and breeze
Dancing dandelions, dainty dog violets.
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Later let me see the fall
Of flower petals to the path,
From each high floral bouquet:
Dashing with pink and white
The grass, creating a colourful carpet,
Delicate to delight our way,
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Through this season; so short, yet
Too intense to appreciate the display.
Been a busy few weeks with little posting – though a fair bit of poetry and some writing, and lots of reading! But mostly just enjoying the spring, which is blooming lovely, if too dry in a lot of places.
I just spent the weekend down in Andalucia, and the heat is rising quickly there, so it’s almost summer, with swifts screaming in the skies already. On the train on the way down, it was clear many fields will give little harvest this year.
Spring is always my most distracted season and this year is no exception. or an exception to the extent that I’ve decided to spend as much time as I can just soaking it up, so I spent hours staring out the train window rather than writing or reading. Nevertheless, the words come, stored up for winter or spluttered out for a short poem.
Hope you like it.
PS, when I returned after the Easter Holidays the hydrangea was nearly dead, having been left unwatered. I gave it some and hope it will recover (it’s not mine, by the way!)
Drought Triggers Fall like Frost
Drought Triggers Fall like Frost
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The forest climbs either side of the valley
Up from the river gulley, glinting pools and
Protruding rocks, grey against green,
Except where steeply narrows, now
Auburn, gold and orange like autumn
Came in August as trees let their leaves
Fall on the shallow soil rather than farther
Toil for little gain under the strain
Of such a fiery glare all summer long.
Library Books
So I’ve been quiet recently – working on finishing my WIP before Xmas! And it looks like I might get there, if I ignore everything and everyone else around me! So, no. I might get there before the end of the holidays!
I have been enjoying the early autumn here. We have finally had some rain, and leaves are falling fast now. The cranes have flown past, one flock right over my house at low altitude, which was quite the experience!
Halloween was wonderful this year. I went collecting mushrooms and chestnuts up in the beech woods, and had a brief encounter with a huge red deer stag, which swiftly did an about turn upon spotting me between the trees.
And what wonderful trees.
This one, an old, old, chestnut, was just perfect for the night that was in it, though I’d not like to hang around after dusk here, just in case it woke up and wondered if an Irishman might fit in that maw!
Meanwhile, my YA paranormal novel is available in paperback now! It, and my young reader novel are also on the shelves of my local library (and in Deansgrange, for those in Dublin!) Thanks to the folks in Yamaguchi Library, Pamplona!
They put this photo up on their facebook page, and when I was in there a few days ago I was delighted to spot it on this shelf, with the other new books.
I also met this charming young lady there, who gave the book her utmost praise (especially after Chapter 6!), though she’s too young to post a review on the internet, unfortunately!
She has given me permission to post her photo, and I have at least one parent’s permission too. Hope I don’t have to ask for the aunty’s!
I have a few teachers reading both books and it looks like they’ll make their way into a few school libraries, too, here in Pamplona.
A few of my students have also bought the paperback of Adam Short and brought their copy in for me to sign, which is a real honour.
Unfortunately, the original reviews have been wiped with the re-publication, so I’d really appreciate anyone who can post one anywhere they can. Thanks! and Enjoy the Autumn!
Calloused as an Old Oak Burr
Walking in the forests of a wide valley
Rimmed by cliffs above us, rolling mist
Over the slopes out across the blue vastness
The vultures glided across the blue sky from
One side to the other, while kites and kestrels
Worked the fields where the woods were
Cut when first men walked within the walls.
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We stood under the canopy of branches
In the shade of old oaks, ages growing
Slowly seeking their sunlight, ever taller,
Thicker boles, holding aloft leaves and,
Even when those died, in winter, green
Epiphytes; a host of other lives, for centuries,
Saying to all in the forest: “Behold, I am here.”
Feeding feast for insects and birds that eat them;
Showering grazed ground with acorns for boar;
Robins following rootings, under those, creating
Holes where night-time animals hide yet.
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One had recently fallen, after perhaps half a
Millennium spreading seeds and supporting
Epiphytic ferns: now hanging upside down
From the bough that held them high so easy
Over which we climbed on the clean bark.
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And I thought of those who carried an axe
Into these woods to gather firewood,
To create charcoal from the oaks:
Brought perhaps as soon as they could walk
And pick up a twig to help their father,
And kept at it until they could walk no more:
Years of seasons spent sweating and freezing alternatively
Snacking on dark bread and forest berries,
Bring back home a snared rabbit if one was had.
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How many injuries did they accumulate,
Inflicted by such occupations? A series of
Splinters, cuts, bruises and bones broken;
But shrugged off and shouldered on
Until calloused, like the knots and burrs
Of the trunks we touch: the pollarded boughs
Wounded, but budding forth once more for fifty years,
Until the axe of those weathered workers eventually fell again.
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For even great oaks are eventually tumbled,
Even if only by time. And those ferns and lichens
That thought they clung to a solid structure are thrown
Over, to cling and seek the sun as best they can.
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We sat upon the curved bough and ate our own victuals,
Thinking of those workers who listened to the same scene
Of songbirds and wind, and wondered of what life was
Like outside these woods, these walls of valley wide
Yet long and uneasily walked out of, and wished
For more, for escape, easiness, for freedom from their destiny,
But accepted, their lives would be lived, alongside these trees.
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Then the telephone took my attention for a time:
A thread landing in my lap with a crack-like impact of
A snapping branch upon me,
And I sat upon a stump and sipped water to keep down the lump
In my throat at this long twitter list of lads and lassies
Of a too young age who’d taken their own lives, the last option:
Locked in the loss that seems so extensive in these times
Of lockdown, long as a valley apparently without exit;
The looking out at a world that looks so perfect, looking back;
The pressure like storm clouds gathered above the cliffs,
Building until smooth wood cracks and saplings snap.
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If only they could have come to this forest, felt the breathing branches,
The soft sunspots, the birdsong rest upon them.
If only they could have stuck around long enough, to resist
Instead of rejecting the pain, the splintered spirit, the bruised soul.
If only they’d stayed a little longer, told another their wishes:
Shouted, screamed, even to a pillow, “I am here and I exist!
“I have a life that is well lived, and will be lived if given
The chance; a hand, a hug, a kiss.”
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For even those who never had to lift a stick or chop a log, can
Build up burrs, callouses, train themselves to toughness,
Over the course of a century or half, from the finer grain
Of slow winter growth gaining perspective to appreciate this:
‘Tis only at the end we can reminisce.
Looking back, we can count up mistakes, regrets,
See the setbacks we withstood, taking bad with good,
Standing tall till Nature takes us, rather than the blade,
If only because we owe it to the saplings stretching in our shade.
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Though only the beasts and bugs it gave life to
Knew of its presence, tall as it was, and only those, who
Were touched by its life will note its fall,
And all the rest of us are ignorant of what it meant to them,
For a tree, that is perhaps enough;
And if we could but be as wise, it would
Too, be sufficient for us.
For those who have fallen too soon….
Landscape Poems
In the Mist
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Calling cranes cross overhead like ghosts in the gloom,
Bells echo down the hillsides from hidden forest horses
Like shots across the valley, voices and dog barks below
Reveal others on the path as invisible to us as we to them
Knowing surrounds only by memory and sounds in the
Silence, the mist expands our senses out like landscape,
Until the sun lifts the veil and sends down into our pocket
Of the earth, a gentle caress of golden warmth and sets
The sky blue brightness shining off mountain cloud
Shimmering across imagined land beneath silver shroud.
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The Same Scene a Thousand Times
A painter can select one scene,
One view, from a certain lookout,
Turn it into their subject: treat
It a thousand ways, in varying lights.
But can a poet? Write a thousand times
Of one mountain range and valley?
Of all the many shadows and scudding
Clouds along its sides, and all
Aspects of the mists across its sky.
A painter can settle in one spot,
A cottage on a cliff:
Paint through the window.
A poet may install himself
In the same place,
But can he use words more than once
To illustrate the landscape?
Or once used, need he seek new views
To inspire new vocabularies?
It seems the answer lies in the
Lines, led along by eyes, looking
In ever-finer focus always finds
The mind inspired to write.
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I have no photos of the scenes that inspired the first poem, but the second poem was inspired by sunset in the same spot I watch sunset most Sunday evenings, and each time it’s inspiring, but can I write of the same valley for the rest of my life? Possibly. It depends less on the inspiration and more on my ability I suppose!
Enjoy the Silence before the coming Squall
I wrote this a few weeks ago, when the weather was colder – now it looks like we’re far from having a white Christmas.
But we can still enjoy the simple things, even if it is only by ignoring the difficulties awaiting us in the new year and beyond.
Silence before the Squall
Snow falls past pine trunks
Like solidified silence: almost
An extension of dawn’s tranquillity
Before squalls scream across canopy
Sending flakes flurrying down
To pale box and holly’s leaves.
As hours slowly pass, and white quietly
Deepens, the wind weakens and settles
Like drifts. Then, as evening stretches,
A strip of cloud opens to allow sunlight
Illuminate the scene before twilight,
Suffusing with diffuse golden radiance
The shifting mists along the ridges, red
Shrouding windmills. Imbuing soft sunset
With orange fire across the ice instead
Of another storm sending us scarpering
Inside to hide, it seems such gentle
Splendour shows us the scenes
Awaiting us after all our playing, and
For all our attempting to prepare
For her vagaries, in the end, we will
Flit like flakes upon her wind, for
We are but Nature’s playthings.
Happy Christmas everyone!
For those looking for a quiet read, or a nice E-reader gift, check out my books….
Some of them are on sale with Smashwords from today!
Winter Poem
Closing up Camp
Fish flash lethargically argent in the creek,
Creeping upstream, gleaning the last
Of the caddis flies until torpor takes them.
Sun beams golden in glowing leaves but slants
Lower now, more weakly heating us, huddled
On the morning porch hugging our mugs.
We don’t swim before breakfast, only
Paddle after our afternoon nap, picking black
And other berries to boil jam and packing
Pumpkins for the car; chopping lumber
For the evening fire still keeps off falling
Chill, but within weeks we will give in to
Winter’s grip and slip away to the city.
Closing shutters against storms and snow,
Emptying water tanks and pipes from icing,
Clearing closets of anything attracting rodents
Or racoons and slowly strolling round the
Leaf-strewn lawn, taking one last long look
Out across the fall-reflective lake, then forsaking.
Still, thinking of spring keeps back sadness,
Slipping through seasons until suddenly
It’s our last, and we must shut up for good,
Or have it opened sadly in our absence,
Our passage through camp just a forest path.
I write this back in September, thinking of the camp of my friend Tamir, who would have turned 60 a few days ago. I don’t have many photos of his summer place in autumn, but I am sure right now it’s deep in snow and the lake is starting to freeze over till springtime. Thus is life, as long as we still have springtime. And memories that shine like sunlight to keep us warm meanwhile.
The Many Versions of the Werewolf Tale
I was in the Basque speaking area of Navarra last weekend, up in the hills.
Very green.
We went to visit a museum made by a very interesting guy called Iñaki Perurena, whose famous in the region for having Guinness World Records for lifting stones, among other things.
He has some amazing sculptures and lots of interesting paintings of characters from Basque Mythology on huge rocks dotted through the woods.
The Basques have a lot of strange characters that live in the woods. A much richer diversity than the simple fairy and leprechauns of Ireland, to be honest.
They have a type of Faun, mermaids, goblins, their own Santa Claus character, a cyclops, giants…
And…. another creature who you might bump into while walking the woods in such remote areas where houses are separated by large tracts of land, and visiting your neighbour involves a trek up a mountain.
Gizotso, is werewolf in Basque, and is said to be an extremely strong savage beast that lives in the woods and is made by sexual intercourse between humans and wild animals.
I’ve a long-held interest in werewolves, of course, and my kids speak Basque in school, but I’d not heard of this particular thread of the great tapestry of werewolf tales.
It’s fascinating how many different versions there are of this story. One of the things that unite all human societies are the similarities in our fireside tales of others who live just outside the light spread by our hearths. And the werewolf is perhaps the most ubiquitous of all, more than even the dragon.
At the same time, it’s disturbing how easily every society can alienate others and reduce them to the status of “savage animals.”
Perhaps it not so difficult to see how such stories of werewolves can spring forth in our imagination from simple ingredients such as deep woods, woodland dwellers, people we don’t like, and people we desire.
Of course, nowadays, nobody believes in werewolves.
Fall Poem
Fall to Forest Floor
When golden leaves strew the ground,
When wind turns swirling, frisking clothes and shoulders,
Then the deer seek company in copses,
And the wolf inside awakens, opening equally amber eyes.
copyright EmoRobotics (http://emorobotics.deviantart.com/)
Back to writing second drafts of my werewolf novel sequels as November rolls on into winter… don’t seem in too bad shape so far.