Nature

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: Dark Iris – Lockdown 24

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The next of these Lockdown Poems also contains an excursion, like the last.

This excursion is different, though, as it is one of memory.  Looking at the irises stirred up three memories.  Although one of the things I am seeking to do with these writings is to stay in the moment, to stay connected to what is before me, other thoughts will come, and this time I welcomed them.  Memory can prove rich when our daily experience is curtailed, and days can seem alike.

The third of these memories is of the beautiful Alde Valley Festival we went to last year, and in particular the huge iris paintings by Jelly Green, which I loved.

Memory can help, and can enrich our presence in the moment.  I am still exploring what those dark tongues of the iris may be saying to me.

 

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Dark Iris  lockdown 24

I am looking out at the
dark irises,
newly unfolding,
stem swinging like
an inverted pendulum
above the singing yellow
of the euphorbia,
looking at their tongues
of darkness,
their deep hearts,
rimmed with purple.

I remember three things –
my last art project at school:
the careful, layered painting
of purple, the sadness
at laying my brush down….

The iris bed at college:
white hard ground,
clear hot sky,
the background
anxiety of summer,
looking into their secret hearts…

Last year, Alde Valley Festival:
when festivals could happen –
those huge canvasses,
the exuberant life of the paint,
the depth of purple,
shading to night at
their very centres.

I am drawn into these
dark hearts,
to listen to the whispering
of those tongues,
to see, from within,
what they are –
and they are
illuminated,
purple and dazzling,
shining
in the high bright sun.

 

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: Night Music – Lockdown 22

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Thank you to those who have recently joined in following this journey of the imagination, and attention, through the experience of lockdown.  We still face pandemic, and uncertainty, as we begin to think about how to emerge.  It’s good to have your company here in these difficult times.  I hope the lockdown poems, fragments, give you moments of tranquility.

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This one isn’t quite like most of the others, and I wondered about including it.  It’s more a clearing of the mind and spirit in the morning after a troubled night.  But we all have troubled nights, perhaps more especially now, so I hope this small poem helps.  I wondered also about changing the line where I talk of consent, consent to the work of the nightshadows in disturbing the day…. I am well aware that many times the shadows do their work without our co-operation, but I kept it, as it recorded how I felt in that moment.  Having noticed, I could, at that moment, chose to decline.  Many times I have not felt that choice.

It helped me sit, in the early morning, and set my intention to sing the song I had found in the night.

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Night Music  Lockdown 22

The night has been casting shadows
again, long fingers of darkness
seeking to pluck at my mindstrings,
heartstrings,
but I know today
they only draw
their discordant melody
from me if I consent.

So I watch their fretful
silent movements,
acknowledge them,
bless them even,
and turn away
to the starfilled skies,
to the nightingale,
to the birds that begin
so early, so early now
to sing.

I choose their song.
I choose too,
to be a small
singing creature
in that great dawn chorus,
while the darkness
does what work it must.

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.

 

Poem: Yellow-leaved Maple – Lockdown 18

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The mood of the Lockdown is changing considerably.  It seems fraying and fractured, with grief and anger rising and being held alongside our deep care for each other, our families and communities.

Many are returning, or facing the prospect of returning, to something not normal, but strange and different.  Some are relieved, some are afraid, most are, I suspect, both.

The words of Wendell Berry’s wonderful and sustaining poem, The peace of wild things, keep coming into my mind.  They sum up for me what I am seeking to do in these Lockdown poems, and what I am doing in my life.  Keeping grounded in the beauty and grace I am experiencing in the spring, and finding in them a deeper beauty and grace than the surface, than the expected.  It speaks to something more, within and beyond, as if, by considering the lilies of the field, we may find a deeper truth and insight.

So here is a poem about trees, and also about the shadows that can fall across life, and the possibility of growth, even so.

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I decided to include this one, even though it is imperfect.

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Yellow-leaved Maple   Lockdown Poems 18

I am watching these strange pink
and buttery leaves unfold on the maple,
its long green flowers
covered with bees.

All its life till now
the tree’s canopy leaned back,
partial, growing around the
darkness of that old cedar,
now gone,
as it sought the light.

So now, new leaves are opening
on those thin bare branches
to the south,
exploring that new clear space,
leaves growing where
they did not, before.

Its shape is becoming an
open dome, it will be complete,
and even now is gilded, shining,
and mosaiced with lapis blue light.
Under it feels a holy place.

Patience.  Patience.
When the shadow has passed,
the growth will begin,
and be seen.

Poem: Home/Safe – Lockdown 16

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A very small poem today, the next in the Lockdown series, but written a few days ago.  It’s another moment captured. Today, on the Friday before a bank holiday, there are more cars about, but I find I am noticing the pattern of quiet in between the sounds, and holding onto that stillness, at least today, in a way I haven’t before.

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The feeling of safety is so important to me, as to us all, and its so good to have a place where you feel safe.  One of the things I have valued at this time is an increased feeling of safety, and peace.  I know this is not everyone’s experience.

I am glad that some action is being taken to support those who are not safe in lockdown, that the police, Boots the Chemist, and others, are opening ways for people to receive help. It’s good to find safe ways of speaking up, and for all of us, it’s so important we listen to subtle clues that someone might need help.

Here are some UK links

Government website
NHS support
Refuge helpline

 

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The bluebells are wilting in the heat now, but this is how they were, growing and flourishing.

May peace and safety grow, and bless our homes.  May we have safe spaces.

 

Home/Safe   Lockdown 16

In this quiet,
so few cars,

Behind this green hedgerow
my feeling of safety,
a feeling of home,
grows, along with these
bluebells.
it is a good place,
a green pasture,
and I am learning here
not to fear,
where all is well,
where there is peace.

 

 

And for when we venture out….

May God make safe to you each steep,
May God make open to you each pass,
May God make clear to you each road,
And may he take you in the clasp of his own two hands.

From Carmina Gadelica – included in my book, Prayers and Verses