Poems from a walk in the Blackdown Hills with other members of Fire River Poets,
16 June 2007.
The Greyhound
Staple Fitzpaine, Somerset
It’s on a narrow English road,
which is full of curves and sightless corners,
in a good country way. And sudden hills
and narrow valleys, which the modern car
takes at a breeze. I know
we take the corners too fast –
it’s as if we’re racing the weather.
And we assume it’s safe ahead
where blameless tourists
could be snapping the view from the road
or moving off in their hired car
oblivious of native traffic. I am driving down
to The Greyhound, then,
to a rendezvous in its green hollow,
where I will wait until the others come,
observing that the walls of the pub,
grey, white and blue-grey stone,
are just the colours for summer
and warm the deepening light that threatens
rain: more than a few spots.
(26 June 2007; revised October 2007)
The Otterhead Lakes
1. The upper lake
I know this was once a fancy place
and there were lawns for summer parties
fronting the big house which has gone now,
dissolved like a monastery. I suppose
a few bricks or blocks are left but even those,
if you could find them, would give no clue
of what they had stood for. All you can see is grass
where the house used to light up the night
(which is now full and black again); deep, uncut grass
between the lake and the wooded slope
down to the road. You can walk right past
without a sense of our human need to enclose
and own spaces. The lake is the centre of the scene.
It lies, like any still water left to its devices,
murky and green in its basin.
Rescued, you could almost say,
from its traumas – boats, fishing lines, swimmers.
Old bicycles perhaps? Who knows!
It has turned away from man-made and pretends
to an older style of existence.
It is going native, going wild.
We, meanwhile, keep to the path … of course.
(26 June 2007)
2. The lower lake
We encountered three dogs,
their owner, a fisherman
and several species near the jetty
of wild plants Tony knew the names of,
to say nothing of the evidence of fish:
blips in the water and bright expanding rings.
Even on the dullest day – and it was pretty overcast –
you get a lift from bright movement in a silent place.
Out in deep water, you could see
where fish broke the surface to feed
and tempt the rod and reel man with his fly –
blip! on the water and a bright expanding ring.
The others talked of scrophularia
and hemlock water dropwort; pointed out to me
the spotted orchid. I didn’t pay much mind.
My eyes were drawn to the water;
my spirit felt the tug of freedom.
(21 June 2007)
The road to Churchinford
I have a metaphor of different appetites
to give a flavour of the walk: two gentlemen
were hungry, eating up the yards;
three ladies were not, and lightly nibbled at them,
on our way to The York Arms. We, up ahead,
congratulated them, back there
for inspecting the hedgerow and, one imagines,
dissecting stems of inspiration: talk
and you feed images to your tingling fingers;
walk on and the waiting poem bubbles out.
We, at best, had stepped out for a purpose
but not the observation of roadside flowers
or the trees that sheltered us when it rained.
Nor even to feel the wind on our cheeks
and enjoy the switchback road. It was unspoken
why we conspired to hurry (perhaps he did
enjoy the switchback road). We went stride for stride
and muttered to each other over nothing.
(4 July 2007)
The field of bullocks
Those bullocks gazed at us
with an extreme of fascination.
Walking fence posts,
their amazement seemed to convey,
were new in their experience.
They all crowded round and waited
while one brave soul
approached … and bounded off
with a laughing kick of his heels
when threatened by a shoo
of hand and voice. Down the sloping field
and back with childish joy
to seek his answer once again.
What were these creatures?
Puffed with strange skins
and walking, mystery of all,
without buckets or feed bags or sticks or wire
or any apparent paraphernalia
or dogs. Fence posts, then,
almost certainly. And moving fast.
(4 July 2007)
© John Stuart 2007