Green

Poem: Pink – Lockdown 31

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This next Lockdown Poem is far more exuberant.  I love the way the dominant colours of the garden change as the season rolls on.  We start with yellows, add blues, and by the time we get to early June it’s a festival of pink – fragrant pink at that.  I presume the different insects who are around at different times of year favour these colours and scents.  Whatever the reason, the things that seed and spread, as well as the things that are planted, do adopt a certain pallette of colours.

I hope you enjoy a brief tour.  I hope it refreshes your eyes on this grey day, especially if you are somewhere away from these changes in the natural cycle, or the view from your window is particularly damp.

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Pink  Lockdown 31

Roses, columbines, geraniums,
the arresting gladioli.
Suddenly its all pink,
and fragrant,
a boudoir from the age gone by,
a powderpuff of loveliness,

Rejoicing and loud
and with absolutely
no subtlety,
calling to that
eager hum of insects
to come, taste,
drown in sweetness.

Life.  Glorious,
singing, life.
It’s here.
It’s now.
Come, taste.

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This rose is a gift from friends.  It’s planted by the door, and called Blessings.

Poem: Beetle – Lockdown 30

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Like yesterday’s poem, this next is an observation of an insect.  There are so many insects in the garden.  Most days, I see one I don’t recognise, and this beetle is one of those.  I did not have my camera to hand to take a photo, but I hope you can imagine it.

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I really value the way writing these snatches of life in the garden has encouraged me to be on the look out for all the huge diversity of plants and creatures that I share my home with.
The frame through which we see anything is shaped and coloured by the thoughts we bring with us, of course. And this poem, like many of the others, carries something of that knowledge of the loss and sadness of our communities around its edges, and in its ending.

Perhaps these snatches of writing are an encouragement to acknowledge those feelings, gently and compassionately, accepting them as we are able, at that moment.

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This pencil case was made an appearance in an earlier poem.

 

Beetle  Lockdown 30

Here, a long black beetle
rearranges its wings,

Black as funeral veils
that cannot be worn,
opening
and closing its
hard shell.

So fragile, the wings –
impossibly so,
folded precisely
as it moves along the
edge of my blanket,
then, with the breeze,
it flies, is gone,
lost to the shadows.
Out of sight, not out of mind.

Poem: Yellow Roses – Lockdown 28

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This next in the Lockdown Poems series came a few days ago, when it was warmer than it is today.  It, like Change, touches on the mixed feelings, the unease, as the lockdown begins to unlock – in what feels at the moment like an angry and haphazard way.

Many of us are hoping that lockdown, this painful and difficult pause, will prove to be a strange form of Sabbath: a holy pause where things can be reset, where values can be reclaimed after the dissipating busyness of business as usual. Perhaps we can reclaim a better understanding of ourselves and our place in the world. I still hope for that, but see that business as usual is as powerful a force as ever.

I hope that we can find a way of making our money and political systems work in the service of all life, and human flourishing, for justice and mercy.  Otherwise, they seem to me to be idols to which life is sacrificed.  At the moment, much is being revealed of the injustice and cruelty of our current systems, whether that be racial and economic injustice, or the wider destruction of life on this Earth. While this is a difficult experience, it is necessary.  It’s hard to do better when you can’t see what’s wrong. It is a long haul, this, seeking a better way forward.

I hope we can retain some of the slowness, connectedness, the care that is being demonstrated in our communities, the richness of our appreciation of the natural world, and of the preciousness of human relationships, as we emerge.  I hope we have and take this opportunity to make something new, and more beautiful, for us all.

What might you hope for?

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Yellow Roses   Lockdown 28

It is getting warm,
and the yellow roses
are out – bright,
sweet,
and there is the cuckoo.

The birds are quieter midday now,
and the cars grow louder.
It unsettles me,
breaks into my green
sheltered glade
with hurry,
and that old linear
way of being I
have set aside.

Can I stay here,
watching the bee
visit the rose?
Watching the columbines
sway, gentle as doves,
and feel the breeze
delight my skin?

What is unlocked,
within me,
as the lockdown
rolls on?
What do I lose,
as this time loosens,
and what remains?

Poem: Gladioli – Lockdown 27

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It’s raining today, and the gladioli and the rest of the garden are greening up, the flowers and the strawberries look plumper already.  It’s good to see.

Here is another Lockdown Poem, which is reminding me to go outside again later, rain or no rain, and breathe the damp earth smell, and take time to notice how the garden is responding.

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Gladioli  Lockdown 27

This green flock
with long necks
and sharp beaks
turn, as one,
towards the sun,
alert for its return.

Sharp leaves
bristling
like flight feathers
about to take off,
although they
will not fly.

Just wait, thought,
a few more days,
and those beaks
will open such a
loud cry of cerise,
extravagant
as any feather,
as any song,

Lifting the
deepening greens,
rejoicing in
the company
of bees.

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Poem: Change – Lockdown Poems 26

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This next in the series of Lockdown Poems is another snatched moment in the garden, and reflects something of the uneasiness many of us are feeling as we begin to emerge in stages from our homes.  Those feelings of unease come from a variety of sources – and I am trying to come to terms with my disquiet at doing a little more, even when that little more is what I want to do.

I hope the discipline of noticing, of grounding, will continue to help, as we take a moment to be still, and look, and listen.

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Change – Lockdown 26

Just quietness today.
Quarrelling crows,
I think more traffic.
A siren.
An uneasy wind.

Red admiral butterfly,
a flash of scarlet and black,
then quiet again,
as the trees hiss and
clouds come grey
from the north.
I am uneasy with
this change.

And yet, the buttercups
are opening,
and the apple tree,
against expectation,
is covered in late
white blossom.

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This image was taken a few years ago, and first appeared on this blog with the poem Consider.

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Poem: Leaves – Lockdown 25

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The next two Lockdown Poems are short, and, like so many of the others, immediate.

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So, however things are going for you today, I hope you can take a brief moment among the leaves.

Leaves   Lockdown 25

After yesterday’s wind,
the ground is
littered with soft new leaves,
curling in the bright sun,
their pale undersides
arching away from the grass.

I’ll gather them from
the lawn, place
them on the earth
under the tree.
Too soon
a homecoming.

Poem: Nightingale – Lockdown Poems 23

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I wonder if this poem is more of an unLockdown Poem, written as it was after a short trip out to a small scrap of heath between wood and river so close to our house. I had been feeling too tired to walk for a few days, and this was the first short outing.  I am very glad I went.  Since I have understood and learned to hear the nightingales, I am aware that there are many near where we live – they appeared in the last poem, Night Music, and will again.

I have no photos of my own of nightingales, such illusive birds, who like to hide away, but here are a few things from the internet.  Perhaps, if you don’t already recognise the song, you’ll find you do hear them after listening.  If you haven’t had a chance to catch up with The Verb, from Radio 3, the episode on Birdsong begins with singing with nightingales, before my poem, The Blackbird. The tradition of poetry about nightingales is also touched on, and people’s responses to the sound over thousands of years.  It’s beautiful.

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Photo from free sounds library

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My local wood.

 

 

Nightingale  Lockdown Poems 23

It’s the quality of sound,
rather than any melody –
loud,  round embodied timbre,
rills and repeats
and variations, strange,
almost more than mechanical,
more than the ghost
in the machine,
the spirit and the flesh,

Stunning the air to silence.

There, in the thicket, in the
low grown oak,
overlooking the creek.
I stop, and let my heart
steady, and listen.

I have never been certain
of it before,
the nightingale’s song –
and I was expecting
more song,
more melody,
less strangeness,
less command of the evening
held by such a soft
brown and
hidden bird

Sound

Stunning me to silence.

Poem: Yoga under the sycamore – Lockdown 21

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The pigeons who come to our garden, and stay, and raise their young, are slightly comical characters.  At least, I usually find them so.  Sometimes, though, I feel a deeper connection with them – like the time I accidentally exposed a nest, which you can read about here.

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I’m afraid I don’t know who took this picture of a pair of pigeons.

Once again, in this next lockdown poem, I am recording the moment, what arises as I seek to receive the gift of the moment before me. This moment came from my morning yoga practice.  I often find movement helps move me to a place of stillness and prayer more than sitting still.  I often find it settles my mind, and helps me come to a place of deep connection. Although I seek to return to prayer, I notice  when things catch my attention, and wonder if they have significance.

Once again, I begin writing in my notebook, not knowing why something has caught my attention, until it emerges from my pencil.  This poem explores the growing feeling of mutuality I have with my place – that I am sharing it with other creatures, and that we take care of each other.

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Yoga under the sycamore   Lockdown 21

We have come to an
accommodation,
that pigeon and I.
I know it waits on these
branches above my head
on its way to the nest –
just there, in the hedge,

and so I lay down my yoga mat
carefully, further back,
not directly underneath,
but still where the morning sun
can reach me.

I do not wish to disturb
the brooding and feeding
in the nest, so I move
with as much
slowness, and control,
and something like flow,
as I can.

I rise up, on a deep inhale,
and as I look up to the tree,
with opening leaves,
I see the pigeon’s soft underside –
pale grey, and pink, downy,
ready to warm eggs,
ready to nurture young,
and somehow,
I feel nurtured too,
to be here, included
in its care,
in the softness of
pigeon down.

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Poem: Gift – Lockdown 20

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I have been finding venturing to the shops hard.  It seems to uncover anxiety.  Firstly, there was the strageness of the distance, the rules, the queueing, the empty shelves, the rules you weren’t quite sure about.

Now, it’s changing.  The distance becomes more permanant.  I am wearing a mask – a lovely one, made by a local person, for Bev’s Eco Products, who donates one for every one she makes.  I have hand sanitiser, I roughly know what to do, and yet…. the strangeness continues.  It is so lovely to see friends out and about, but very hard to be sure you are staying far enough away at all times.  We worry we may take the virus with us where we go – into shops, back home to our households. The sense of threat has, for me, increased as I feel less confident in decisions being made by government.  There are, as always, other things behind our fears, but that is enough to be getting along with.

I go to my lovely local shops, where I know people.  I vary which ones, and when, to avoid patterns, and, on return, after cleaning hands yet again and disinfecting cupboard handles, I sit outside, and allow myself to be consoled.  Sometimes, that consolation takes a tangible form, as it did here….

So this is partly a Lockdown Poem, and partly an account of how my place is helping me venture out. Perhaps we will need some unlockdown poems, too.

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Gift  Lockdown poems 20

As I sat gently in the sun,
holding in my hands
a weird sea of sadness
a trip to my shops
had stirred,
I asked, gently,
why,
why this distress?
And listened.
Then, I took instead
a sip of tea,
and breathed, gently.
This rose petal fell
on my page
before I wrote a word.

I look up.
The rosebuds are tight
shut above me,
and yet, it fell.

Poem: Shadow Tree – Lockdown 19

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I’ve been intrigued by the early morning light through a tree in my garden.  The way the shadow that falls on the lawn seems so substantial compared to the dazzling, light-backed living original.  I found myself drawn to sitting within the scope of the shadow tree as I watched the sun rise.

 

This photo was taken a few weeks ago now, the tree is in much fuller leaf these mornings, so the sensation of being caught in the net of shadow less acute. I have loved watching the leaves unfold day by day.  I have even tried to develop a practice of sketching the tree and the shadow, but I am not being very rigourous in keeping that up.  I shall try again, though.

I am keeping up my tradition of the Lockdown Poems, though, so I sat on the ground with my notebook, and wrote what follows.

 

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Shadow Tree  Lockdown Poems 19

I sit on morning damp grass
in the criss-cross light
at the top of the shadow tree –
part of its dark, elegant structure.

The living tree before me
has the sun caught in its branches,
as I am caught in the net
of shadow twigs –
the sun rising,
while lime green
leaves are unfolding
before and above me.

The shadow-trunk curves
towards the base,
to join the living green sap
of the roots, so I see
the tree exists in two planes –
one light, one dark,
one light, one dark.

For a while, despite the
discomfort of sitting cross
legged in my gardening boots,
I shall stay here within
the shadow tree,
seeking its wisdom,
watching its dark leaves grow.