Lockdown poems

Poem: Hospitality – Lockdown III

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Next week, all being well, the rules will change here in England. We’ll be able to have someone local in the garden again. Having all this time with no human visitors has made me thing about who I’m tending this garden for. It’s been rather nice to leave aside my imaginary visitor who might critisize my rather haphazard and untidy methods, and just go with what I want, and what the garden seems to do. I hasten to say that my dear friends who came and sat with me last year, when inside was out of bounds, are always delighted to be here, and say no such thing! The critic is internal, and I am seeking to encourage her or him not to worry, to look at what is beautiful instead.

I’ve changed my emphasis this year. Previously, I was being quite purist about going for british native plants, wildflowers, and I still do try for those first. However, that did leave a long gap in the latter half of the year when there wasn’t much for the insects, so now I’m going for abundant life – plants and a style of gardening that encourage insects, birds, any other wild creatures that are happy to be here. I am protecting tender things from the muntjac, but the deer is welcome just the same. You can read about my planning for later in the year in my poem, Dreaming of Flowers.

Hospitality, then, in my garden, is the largely hidden from human eyes at the moment. It is fairly unconcerned about what other people might think. It is simply what I, and the wildlife, like. This winter, I’ve done other things to shelter nature. I’ve put up a couple of bird boxes, and made a bee hotel, and had piles of cuttings where ladybirds overwinter. I might write about those later. For now, I’m just rejoicing in a few of the flowers.

An edge of the lawn, left unmown, where the primroses have settled. I planted the crocuses in the autumn lockdown.

Hospitality  Lockdown III

Alone in the garden. Mild.
The early insects stir, hum,
fly slowly towards the flowers
I have planted –
startling yellow aconites,
the shrub honeysuckle,
primroses, crocus –
oh, those two together,
the purple and the yellow,
how they shine,
how they bend their
impossibly thin pale stems
as they follow the sun,
as they accept the
weight of bees.

This garden is still
a welcoming place.
Cut off from friends,
from human hospitality,
from tea and laughter,
from human notice of
these opening buds,
even now
the garden hosts
such a banquet.

It sustains and rejoices
so many –
the hoverflies,
like this one,
resting in the yellow aconite
all this time
as I write.

I have spread a table here,
welcoming all this life,
and together with
all these,
I receive the early warmth,
I rest in the fragrance of flowers.


Just to add – today, I saw the first male brimstone butterfly visiting the primroses. So exciting!

Poem: Maidens Grove/Grave – Lockdown III

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On some maps, especially old ones, part of the wood near where I live is called Maidens Grove, or Maidens Grave. I can’t help wondering what was the fate of the maiden, and how long ago her story may have been told. It feels ancient to me, something passed down and down until it was forgotten – but perhaps not by all, perhaps someone knows the tale, still, and still tells it.

At some point this land seems to have been used as a quarry, and there is an abrupt slope down to the bottom of the wood, which I like to reach via a steep and narrow path through an arch of holly bush – it has the air of a portal, an entrance into a different world. And down here, it is different. The soil and the plants are darker and denser, and the land is crossed by streams. It’s here I gather the ransoms, wild garlic, when they emerge. It’s here I look for snowdrops. The paths are thick mud. You need to think about how the weather was a few days previously to guage how robust your boots need to be, and the trees sometimes suffer from the unstable ground, even though more sheltered from the wind.

The trees that fall are left where they fall, food for so many creatures, giving back to the soil.

And so, down here in Maidens Grove, or Grave, I came across a new loss, a huge straight tree pulled out of the ground. The image of it wouldn’t leave me alone. I’ve been trying to find a way of writing about the vastness of the losses we are all facing with the pandemic, and the desperate sorrow of each one of those losses. This poem isn’t it, nowhere near, but something of the sadness of the time seeps into it. I don’t want to look for signs of hope, for the new life that might come, and yet in the wood at least I found myself noticing such signs, by hopeful reflex, and began wondering if I could accept that they were there, even by the grave of a great tree.

Poems this lockdown aren’t coming so easily. You can read about the very gentle, informal project here. I will continue to share them with you as they emerge. Shared experiences are hard to come by, and I am encouraged to find that we can find connection here, on line, and I hope that with this poem, we can take a walk in the woods, wherever you may be spending this difficult, winter lockdown. So thank you for your time, and your company. I hope we can all find hope, in due season.

Maiden’s Grove/Grave

Here, down in the
sheltered hollow
of Maiden’s Grove,
or Grave,
dark paths
of deep mud
are laid across
with sticks,
marks of the care
and kindness
of those who have
walked this way before.

Here, these paths
are edged with the
first signs of ransoms
emerging, pale and
curved, beckoning
in all this darkness.

Here, as the small stream
cuts slowly, year by year,
through layers
of gravel and clay,
a great tree lies fallen,
stretched back into
the heart of the wood,
green with ivy only,
blocking the water’s flow.

Its fall has splintered many branches,
and about it,
other trees stand wounded,
open, half felled by this great fall.
I feel the moan and the
crash of it,
its life-roots darkly upended,


but here,
the deep bowl its
roots have left
is already filled by
the seep of water,
black with an ash grey sheen,
where a few of last year’s
leaves float,
overshadowed
by this great spread
of root and earth.

The bowl is new
in this old, shifting
landscape,
not yet softened by
new growth –

and yet so soon, so soon,
its surface pits and circles
with movement below,
stirred by some creatures
who have found it, already,
already made it a home.

This dark bowl seems a spring
from which the stream flows now,
a source, a beginning,
down, over stones and branches
and spoilheaps of mud
to here, where I stand,
where the dark
path crosses.

Around it,
a tangle of brambles
and a scatter of birds,
and unseen,
a creep of creatures
comes to this place,
the tree’s root-grave,
sprung open,

rolled away by a mighty wind,
so full of life,
already, and already
that life begins its work,
softening, decaying,
and now,

I am allowing
myself to wait,
to wait and see
who will come here,
what will rise again here,
in Spring.

In a few weeks, the ransoms will be up and fragrant and ready to eat.

Poem: Inside, Outside. Lockdown III

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This new lockdown, I am writing in my notebooks again, letting what emerges, emerge. You can read about the Lockdown Poems here – their immediacy, their rootedness in my place.

Once again, I have begun writing what I see, and what is before me in this moment. Whereas the earlier poems, starting in March, are largely written outside, this one is about looking out. Beginning to write is a revealing thing. As I proceeded, I felt that what I was exploring was that sensation of being stuck inside – looking out, but not with longing. I am looking out at a world that is far from inviting. Cold, wet, and darkening as it is. Once again, that small moment, that everyday feeling of watching the rain, seemed to unfold and reveal a wider and deeper difficulty. Not so much of being stuck inside, but of not wanting to venture out into a world that seems alarming, potentially dangerous, as we face the terrible acceleration of the pandemic’s spread. It is truly terrible, the grief that is echoing around our closed rooms, the potential for harm in each interaction.

But venture out I will – the natural world still offers its hospitality and welcome, however cold and dark it seems. The garden and area around still see me tramping about for exercise and refreshment. I had a new waterproof coat for Christmas, which is making all the difference to how I feel about being outside just now – at least from the point of view of the weather. The pandemic is a different matter. My venturing is limited now, circumscribed and circumspect. I notice an increasing tendency to some anxiety at the thought of “out”. That anxiety is well founded. I am listening to it, and taking what precautions I can. As we all are.

It will not always be so, though. We will emerge. For now, the balance and relationship between inside and outside has shifted, profoundly connected to the natural world as we are. We can feel cut off from the winter, we are certainly cut off from each other. But even now, there are tiny wonders to be seen out there, small hopes and shifts, if we can raise our eyes and look.

Inside. Outside   Lockdown III

Inside, looking out,
through golden light
to cold grey,
through glass
and warm air
and stillness,
to where the
cold wind shudders the trees.


Outside, the curved seedpods
of the tree peony
drip with ice rain,
glittering

While candlelight
and lamplight
are reflected in the glass,
and glow orange in
the darkening grey garden.

And a tumble of birds
comes, and goes,
comes, and goes,
chattering endlessly
on the feeders
that sway in the sharp wind

And if I hold my nerve,
and hold the gardener’s gaze,
even from here I can see
that fuzz of green
on the ice-furzed soil –
Herb Robert, violets,
the tissue-paper yellow
of wet primroses,
and the soft spears
of bulbs just beginning.
Bluebells.  Cerise gladioli.

Outside seems far away.
A different air.
A different light.
But soon my boots
will be on my feet,
and my coat wrapped about me,
and I will feel that frost,
and the cold wind,
and I will feel
the ice rain again.

To keep our spirits up, a reminder of what is to come.

Poem – Dreaming of Flowers, Lockdown III

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Here in England we are back in lockdown – I think it’s Lockdown III, depending on how you count the November one. It’s exhausting, and so difficult for so many, with all the chopping and changing. It’s dreadful to watch the numbers of sick and dying rising every day, and to hear of the hardships lockdown brings too. It’s relentless. I am so grateful to the science and health professionals who are working so hard to both tend the sick and find ways of overcoming the virus. I am so grateful for the promise of the vaccines. I only hope we can get them delivered quickly and effectively.

In the first lockdown, I wrote snatches of poems which often started from times of quiet, seeking stillness in the garden. You can read about that here. How much of that I’ll do at this time of year I don’t know. What this lockdown will bring we can’t say. But I find myself drawn again to the gentle changes of weather and season, plants and flowers, as a way of steadying myself, and marking the passage of time, and connecting with something beyond myself which gives glimpses of hope.

In the November lockdown, or circuit-break, I’m not quite sure what name to give it, I indulged the gardener’s delight of ordering and planting bulbs for the spring, and began dreaming of flowers – I found myself waking with planting schemes forming in my mind. I needed something to look for beyond the shortening of the days, the closing in of the weather, and the uncertainty surrounding Christmas. I found it was effective. It was someting within my control, something I could do to introduce an element of hope and change and the promise of beauty. It gave me physical work, too, which in turn helps with sleep.

And yesterday, the notebook came out, and tentative jottings began to emerge.

So I don’t know whether this will become a regular practice, but, as in the first lockdown, I thought I’d share with you whatever it is that comes up, and see if that connects with you, who are kind enough to share your time and attention with me here. I hope we can peep outside, and see something that lifts us. I hope we can receive the gifts this dark season gives, and perhaps bring a few sprigs of green inside. We can plant hope, even here.

So this poem, which might be the first of a new series of Lockdown poems, draws on the earlier planted hope, and receives encouragement and delight from seeing new things spring up. I also wonder – what this time? What might I do during this lockdown? Of course, there is no necessity for there to be anything, it is enough to live in these strange days, but, I am wondering what there might be that is within my scope and power to do, to begin, to dream of….

Dreaming of flowers  Lockdown III

Each morning, now,
as the sun nudges fitfully up,
I do my rounds of the garden,

sometimes under a wide umbrella,
walking with as much grace
as I can muster,
careful not to trample the
sodden, spongy ground.


I am looking for fingers of crocus,
ready to spread,
and snowdrops, grey-green
in the dark soil.
I am looking for what I planted,
and for what has inched
in patient drifts through
the waiting ground.

And there, and there,
I begin to see.
Each day, I hope,
a few more,
and a little taller.

On better nights,
I dream of flowers now,
and wake to think of flowers.
Red and purple
and orange, spread
like velvet, loud with bees.
The hard knots of bulbs
I planted in fistfuls
by November’s shrinking light –
in a fury of hope,
in defiance of the
narrowing circle
of my life, of our lives –
they will awaken.


They are beginning
to do their work now,
this time, within me,
locked down once more,
they are beginning
to push up from the
cold dark depths,
beginning to green
in this faintest, tentative,
stretching of the light.

And what this time?
What will I do that
could push through
the darkness with
green spears of hope,
could fill my dreams
with the scent of life?



Plant Hope #PlantHope

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Over the summer, I had some dreams of what I might do come the autumn. I wasn’t too foolhardy in my dreaming, I knew that the pandemic was likely to bite back by winter, but I wasn’t anticipating it being quite so soon, or feel so much like tipping into darkness and confusion.

One of my dreams was to “do something” by way of creative protest in support of the environment, something small and local that would perhaps offer hope, and a touch of beauty. I had dreamed of a creative, peaceful presence in my town’s shopping street, giving out bookmarks and daffodil bulbs, encouraging people to #PlantHope. Somehow, I never quite got to the place where I felt brave enough to do it on my own, and I miss the collective gatherings where we can encourage and support each other to do things together. I miss church community, I miss other communities too of friends and likeminded people.

But I am thinking, it’s not too late to start something. And, as local people, and people far away, join me on this blog, I thought I’d share the idea with you, and see what happens. Release it, or plant it, and see what grows.

As the seasons are turning, I’m suprised to find how urgently I’m seeking to prepare for winter, and plant for spring. As news from the pandemic, the economy, the natural world feels grim, I am looking to the natural world to help me through this coming time, as it helped in the spring with the Lockdown Poems. And so the idea of #PlantHope began to grow in my mind. Maybe some would like to pick up the idea of giving out bulbs, observing social distancing. Maybe we can also all do some hopeplanting, or planthoping, in our gardens or windowsills, seeking to nurture and care for something green and growing over the winter, and into the spring.

A reminder not to give up. A reminder that nature is resillent, relentless in its capactity to grow and flourish in even the most difficult situations. It only needs a little light, a little water, and some hope.

Shall we give this a go? Shall we plant hope?

I made my bookmark with a stamp by the lovely Noolibird.

The plastic free bulbs are from Farmer Gracy

And the table is from Hannah Dowding Furniture

Part of my intent to Plant Hope is to try to support independent traders and businesses doing their best to be sustainable, where that’s possible.

Poem: Snake, not in the grass

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Since my series of Lockdown Poems came to an end, my new notebook is filling up with different things…. I’ll share more with you another day, when I’ve worked up something more shareable, perhaps more complex.

This, though, was what happened yesterday, and I wanted to share it with you now.  If anything, it’s an unlockdown poem, reflecting the impact that increased traffic has had on one creature.  Once again, I feel pulled in different directions.  I am glad our local businesses are cautiously open again, but I miss the quiet roads and the space for nature.  I wonder how many creatures had become used to safely crossing, and have lost the habit of caution.

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The road earlier in the Spring, quiet in lockdown.

I am not particularly keen on snakes.  I don’t recall seeing a grass snake in this area before, and certainly I’ve never seen one in or so close to the garden..  That the first one I have a chance to look at closely should be dead saddens me.  It has troubled me, and I still can’t shake the image from my eyes. We can hold more than one impression – I am a little afraid of this snake, but I see its beauty, and feel its loss.

Our garden continues to be full of life.  The newts are back sheltering under the red watering can, and there are small frogs among the strawberries – I hope they are growing larger on the slugs.  Maybe this snake was on its way to our small sanctuary, and didn’t make the crossing.  Maybe I’ve run over things myself, and not even noticed – I must have done.

This one dead creature seems to be weighty with significance, so, as ever, I have explored that with words.

 

grass snake animalia

Grass snake from Animalia on Pinterest

 

 

Snake, not in the grass

There’s a coil of something
long, with a faint gleam,
on the road by our drive.

A prickle crosses my neck.
The heat rising from tar
brushes my legs as
I take a slow step nearer.
Silver underside, dark stripes.
Snake.

Its tail is flat,
its pale interior exposed
to this drying sun,
It doesn’t move.

Its shape is burned
in my mind.
I can’t forget it,
can’t settle.
Such beauty,
such strangeness,
dead.

The road must not be
its resting place,
unnatural with the
hardness of cars
and the smell of tar.
Its long fluid form,
its pale green and grey,
the strip of yellow brightness
by its intelligent head,
these things call for
softness, and respect.

I do what I can do.
Not enough.
Scoop it as tenderly
as I can with my
cautious spade,
and lay it in the long grass
where I try to grow wildflowers.

 

I am so sorry this was your end,
beautiful creature,
beneath wheels,
you, the first snake seen here,
in this place.
It’s a strange welcome,
but welcome you are.
May you rest in this pale
dry grass,
be part of this land,
thank you for your life,
your part in the life
of this place.
We are the poorer
for your loss.

Poem: Grandiflora – Lockdown 35

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When I wrote this next poem, as the volume of traffic increases, as the number of people we encounter while out walking near our home increases, I felt that it was the last one.  The last one named and numbered for lockdown.  This series had come to a resting place, I felt.  The lockdown was ending, possibly disintegrating.

And there are all the mixed emotions that go with everything to do with the covid crisis.  Of course, it is such good news that fewer people are afflicted with this terrible disease.  I am glad my little local shops are beginning to trade again, and people in my community are able to support their families.  I worry that this is a lull, and not an end.  I worry that we are missing an opportunity to make things better in our scramble to make things normal.

But also, I have really enjoyed this method of writing, and then sharing with you.  Thank you for your company.  I hope these poems have given moments of peace, or thoughtfulness, or connection, or beauty – as they are, and as you need.  I will continue writing like this, and also seeing what else calls to be written.  I think there are new things.  So, there are 35 of these, in this series.  I also wrote seven poems for Good Friday.
That’s quite productive for me, and some recharging of my creative batteries, some reading and thinking and seeing, is required.  Having said that, I may miss doing this so much there’ll be something tomorrow!

This last poem seems to say some things that had been rising up in me for a while.  I am finding, in my response to the multiple crises that are unfolding, that I am trying to understand what is going on, rather than value my own opinion so much.  There is a letting go for me here, which is the first step of learning.  It’s seeking to adopt a beginners mind, or seeking to become like a little child.  There is a reference to the wonderful piece of Medieval mysticism, The Cloud of Unkowing, in the poem, and you can read a bit more about that here.

Thank you again for your time, for sharing your time and virtual comany with me, and for your attention, and bless you.

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Grandiflora  Lockdown 35

I am tired of argument,
although curious,
and seeking understanding.
I am done with the
certainty of knowing.

There is so much more
to be explored in unknowing,
so much awaits
in that soft mist
that rests on the skin.

These magnolia leaves,
rattling in the breeze,
some yellow, and falling,
some green, and shining,
do they know the flowers
will begin to open soon?

The flowers will open,
known or not,
releasing their
creamysweet
scent above me –
joining with
the honeysuckle,
with the rose –
revealing their strange
strong hearts.

Each day,
a new flower
will open.
Each day,
I will receive
their beauty,
and, in turn,
pour out tea leaves
for their dark roots.
I am finding
it is enough.
It is enough.

 

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Poem: The company of bees – Lockdown 34

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This is the last but one of the Lockdown Poems. Something will continue on after, but whatever it is, it’s not quite this.  Whatever strange time we are in now, it’s not quite lockdown, although I know that many are still keeping at home, and we are all missing those we love and haven’t seen for months.  Thank you for your time and company as we’ve been watching this season unfold.

At times during this strange spring, I think we’ve had some painful space in which to consider the ways we live, and the injustices and destruction we have thought were inevitable.  In seeing those injustices and destructive forces stripped bare, and also in seeing the great machine of Mammon halted briefly, we’ve had a glimpse of the hope that lies at the bottom of the well of all that is not hopeful.  Nadia Bolz-Weber’s sermon to prisoners this week speaks so powerfully into the nature of hope, it’s short, and so well worth listening to. I think what we are beginning to see is the struggle of a vision of a more beautiful world, the birthpangs of something more whole and holy, that are real and painful and require effort and will.

So, this next poem started off as a morning contemplation of what was before me, and moved to a brief touching on the tragedy, or tragedies, we are facing and facing up to at present.  There is a folklore that you should tell the bees the news of those who have died, and that seems a hard task right now.

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I had a problem with the memory card in my camera, and by the time I sorted it out, the bees had gone deeper into the bush, and I couldn’t catch them.  Here are the tiny flowers they love. In the winter, the birds will eat the white berries.

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The company of bees  Lockdown 34

I will quieten my spirit
in the company of bees –
so many.
Honeybees to my right,
filling the snowberry bush with
their eager hum,
the tiny flowers constantly
visited, endlessly
searched.

Bumbles – white tailed, and red,
carder, and buff –
to my left,
climbing up the steep
slope of the gladioli flowers.

You should tell the bees
news, they say,
tell them the news
of who has died.
There are so many,
so many now.
We must speak
our sorrows,
even though such
speaking is beyond us.
These lives
must be more than
numbers –
loves and hopes
and the seemingly
endless tide of
breath, ended.
So much had been
lost.

And what do the bees
do with our sorrows?
can they carry those
heavy loads away?
And those bees,
when do they speak
of their own loss,
the meadows stripped bare,
the poison they
bring back to
their hives,
their place of
safety and plenty
dying too?

This small place
of nectar and
kindness, it’s
all I can offer,
for both.

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A mown path through the wild flowers – it’ll be full of yellow when the sun comes round.  What sort of path do we wish to walk, what sort of path do we wish to make? Maybe there is a choice before us.  Can we choose life?

 

 

Poem: Beans coiling uncoiling – Lockdown 33

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Welcome to another small moment of noticing – this time we’re back to the veggies. These lockdown poems are often a celebration of paying attention, noticing the small wonders that are before us every day. Since we’ve had some rain, the beans have been racing ahead.  I seem to have managed to keep the pigeons off them for now, but, with all the little seedlings, they are strutting around looking interested.

I am intrigued by the way the stems search out their supports, and coil around them.  It’s beatiful to come back day by day and see what progress they are making.  All from a small bean, and the earth, and the rain, and the sun.  No wonder they inspired fairy tales.

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Beans coiling uncoiling – Lockdown 33

How does the bean know
to twist itself so perfectly
around these tall sticks?

How does the stem grow
close on one side, where
it touches, stretched
out on the other,
open to the air
and the sun?

I uncoil it tenderly
from where it has
strayed.
How long until it
cleaves to its
new home?
How long until
it feels safe,
and thrives?

Poem: Longing for Rain – Lockdown 32

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We had an intensely hot, dry stretch of weather, in May, which was a time when the few miles to the sea was an impossible journey.  Even as the lockdown eased, and journeys became more possible, we’ve been tentative in our outings, and sought out remote and deserted stretches of coast.  I have been recalling the longing for rain, and the longing for the sea, even as the garden revives, and we’ve heard and smelled the sea.  I’ve been turning those two things over in my mind.

This poem expresses some of the longings of lockdown, and is part of the series of poems that are emerging at this time.  I feel we may be getting closer to the end of that series, and then, it may be time for something new to emerge.

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Longing for Rain  Lockdown 32

The sea has felt so far away,
here, in this sheltered space.
The sound of water lapping,
lapping, seems miles of
dry ground from here,
while the little strawberries
are hard and intense,
like jelly sweets,
and the grass begins to yellow,
and leaves curl,
under a white sky

There is a symmetry
to this longing.
The journey I long to make –
to the sea, to the
spume and the sea mist,
the grey stones and the brown waters,
and the journey I long for
those waters to make –
to visit us here
on this drying land,
blown by the wind
on rivers of cloud,
then falling softly –
hissing, hot-earth-smelling
rain.

May our paths cross,
our journeys
be completed,
may the life-giving waters
soak and soothe us.
May it be so.