31. From Whence She Came

From Whence She Came

To look back, behind the curtain

Before your heart beat a certain

Proof of 'when' you are,

Is the former marrow memories of

The forebears.

To feel the soft stab truth

In generational proof

Of 'who' you really are

Issues forth lush visitations

Of mind attic.

I dream of, and know my forebears

And find them within the borders

Of the places where they lived.

The Fowlers and the Wraggs

Ghosting memories flag

In seeing what was home.

Today, Spring Cottage, Winson

Where my father's heart beat crimson

Courting village scene with my mother.

I could almost hear my

grandfather's clock still

Ticking there.

(Dad, the swifts nest still in roof tiles.

At gardens end the spring still greets the Coln,

Runs its sedentary dappled path

Of ache swallow dipping lushness,

As of yesteryear).

And on, to Lower Slaughter

A  house that held three daughters

Ronald Fowler ensnared there.

He chose gentle Florence

Over bolder, older Ada.

The same clock chimed years

Near that stream.

(And Ada, Flo!  Children still dip toes

And paddle in the water, merriment of laughing

Faces as ducks sentinel like stalkers

And the mill wheel turns 

At Slaughter, as it ever did).

And home still knows my bones when shown

Knows where home has been, though unknown

Years past before me here.

In my marrow, soul seeding DNA

I was there.

Today's image is of Spring Cottage, Winson, painted by AWM (Wes Martin) for his Daily Painting project. Spring Cottage is in the heart of the Cotswolds and the village remains unspoilt.

30. Running out for Milk

Running out for Milk

The chestnuts have their candles on

And the Willow Warbler warms the hedge 

As I drive past.

Stopped to snap the sunset

God fire fingers light tails cast

From rain cloud.

The the hare again

Chose to lollipop the lane

In his time, to the gate.

Never so green

As this time of May late.

The Jay never quite so vivid

Or more parrot flare wild

In the woods. Coming home,

He had freedom and relief

Enough to dance in front of the car

Showing off his blue bars, moustache and

Intense eye fly flare.

"Ohh Babe!" my surprised mouth formed

And the rainbow too - I jest not -

Touched the streamed field where horses adjourned.

One of those evenings,

When running out of milk

Is the best accident you could have.

29. Stressed

Stressed

Step away from that word

And what does it mean?

Rendered obscene

And useless by over application;

Infiltration of corporate speech,

Medicalised brain leeches,

Lexicalised, brain bleached

And a fashionable label on a jammed jar.

Tonight the sea saw balance

Between resources and demands

Lays heavily spent on the right side,

As it has these past few weeks,

With a gradual quickening

Of foetal force that leads to

Remorseless thinking of the grand

To Do List, growing in laborious pain.

My phone a modern thumb screw of

Texting back the tennis ball

Over the net of petty requests and

Haranguing demands I cannot satisfy.

I will let someone down,

As inevitably as my over-concern lets

My own self down.

All nine of Yeats’ bean rows

Taunt as idealistic impossibility

And the hived honey bees

Would have me bat the air

And run for sting shade.

Somewhere in this, I lost my heart.

Or it got trampled by ignorant feet,

That needed ground too much to look down.

I know better than rest,

Is wholeheartedness.

I know I left it here

In a velvet box,

Tied with hopeful spider silk.

But I am too tired yet

To take the needed breath

Stop looking, and so to find it.

28. The Bar Bullfighter

The Bar Bull Fighter

In the pub, at the bar

Men gather to share strut stories,

Playing with pocketed loose change

Or leaning with elbow assertion

In front of the pumps.

Each waits for The Pause,

Rehearsing the tale to top

The last, only half hearing

The current yarn

In the jostling queue.

We sit and eat our meal.

Chewing hides

Delightful pleasure

In dropping my eaves,

Attending the task

Of my salad leaves.

“And like, we didn’ know the towne

But he like, went ‘This Way! That Way!’

An’ we ended up in the roughest part there.

In some crazy wild Irish Pub!”

A gauntlet thrown in the swig of beer,

That ends the story. No-one responds to content,

But the older man, without reassurance of forearms

On the bar begins:

“Have you ever kissed the Blarney Stone?”

Direct question demands muttered response.

Gratified to be alone in his boast, he elaborates:

“Well, you gotta let this chap hold on to yer ankles.

Massive drop. Upside down, you kiss the stone!

I got a certificate to prove it!”

And another reward follows the fable:

The booted woman proves attention,

Despite herself, interest asking:

“What’s it like?”

Now he has credit for the dramatic pause

And the delaying sup of pint:

“Ha! I nearly shat meeself!”

Even the men bow to the bullfighter

And they all laugh in chorus.

I chew my food quietly

In the table behind

And my wilting dressed salad

Smiles along with me.

27. Pigeon Parliament

Pigeon Parliament 

After a year of talking, it emerged that if I wanted

To know how I was coping, I needed to look at my lawn.

The first year of living alone, my garden was a defiant

Point of pride and produce, growing too much, planting

Just for colour.

Second year, I put my fingers in the pulsating mower, 

Grew afraid and desolate in horticultural proof of independence.

Perfect patch and border edges could not hide agitative stretches

Of tired time in too much land.

Last year washed out. Nestling potatoes died in sod, 

Strawberries licked no cream. No time, or perhaps I gave up 

Pretending I could do things on my own, or that I wanted to. 

Wilderness stepped in.

Today my mower started. A lawn fit for strimming, yet

No whip lash plant slasher operational, nor will to wield it.

A rose arch down and the second  a wrecking ship above a

Wild sea border.

Last year, in therapy this would have spelt doom:

My overgrowth symbol of relational failure,

The start shy mower a penance as

'Woman fights nature weedily alone'.

Tonight in mowing grass, a windfall  perception harvest: 

Strangely proud of disarray, defiant even. What matters

If every school parent collecting looks over hedge

And nose as wilderness judge?

To project their censure or pity is to fail.

Therefore..

I can reveal to the village that the Fat Pigeon Parliament

Meets every morning above decaying roses. They rail, they moan,

They get little done. They nest in my burgeoning hedges and the 

Entrepreneur blackbird

Chuckles out worm purchases and sewing machine needles

My lawn dandelion jungle. Rather than pity, they can envy the 

Halcyon truth of a Hannah who has got these things right:

I have been taking moon baths, 

Singing in ecstasy to lapwings, 

Eye meeting hare and deer, 

Watching sky cathedrals

And adventuring with my girl

On school nights down our river.

(Parliament meeting house below.)

And the general display of a life being lived and a garden being neglected: 

26. Perspectives

                                                                   Perspectives

"I'll write in an hour"

I tell myself,

Self-sorry and unwilling

To commit words to page -

To share perspectives

Of inflection, risk censure,

Or rejection - or to ostracise

Myself and prove further

Eccentric who I am.

Blessed. I see this in

My mother's eyes

As she said goodbye.

Their love of me

A constancy, from which

I know my bravery flows.

But alone, again this night

Putting her to bed

And in not having one

In this room to share

Random thought bustles

The day has made.

At times, I let the cow low

Lower in my stomach

And the fence gate barb

Hide the field and hill

From my view.

I see only that the shopping

And bounty of Mother Hubbard

Is cupboarded by my efforts

Alone.

Washing up waits for no

Washer but me.

We do something wonderful

And I ache for want of witness,

Or that goodnight kiss

Or tea made for me in turn.

This is but one truth only.

Hannah, this is the log

To trip you on repeat,

And lend perspective

Of deceit to your view.

Not ALL the truth, 

Nor all history to be,

Or past. 

And my mother's eyes

Have twinkled her love 

With enough brightness

To confirm: I have assured

Residency in that home.

In that is more blessing

Than all the blooming

Blossom on the entire hill.

25. Night Gig

Night Gig

The darkness here is different

From others I have known.

Not like city night spells

Sodium bathed, orange shadowed -

And not like home

Where any black is filled with

Motorway, distant car races

Human machine chases,

Magnified by sky.

No. Here the Herefordshire sheep

Are singing to the hedgerows

And the loud cow bay boom

Makes its deft way

Through inky blue and

Down on my waiting ears.

Yes. That is it:

Sound falls DOWN.

Spinning round the gentle hills

Like coins in charity collections.

And the tree-paused waiting

Slows the dog bark and the

Tawny hooting to something

Magnified and soothing I don't find

Elsewhere.

This is why I am here tonight, 

After they are all in bed:

For the sumptuousness 

Of being the last one up

And possibly the only audience

To this Empire Gig.

Only the night and this

 Isolated countryside 

Has the improvisational skills

To perform soporific magic

That soothes even the pips

Of my apple'd core.