poems for International Poetry day

Vespers

South into night
Light fades

The journey lengthens
Strengthens

Shadows on the land
Band of indigo

Above azure folds
Tolls the bell

Our dreams
Seem to capture

Progress
Less we travel

Night prayer
Shared echoes

Across the land
Moonrise

To an unnamed granddaughter after a water birth

Water welcomes you, slipping from one watery
Home to another, rising to breathe the air, your form

Turns in the depths aqueous, a Mermaids tale
Divides as you seek to expel waters breath

Crest the wave, breathe air, breaking the surface
Waiting until your name is called for all to hear

But now as yet unnamed you bring delight
We smile and smile through tears

Hold you gently and pray
For happiness, for you and for ourselves

Our grandchild youngest
Now of four and all three … brothers

And cousins, seven of those, all loving
Proud as you the eighth join the family

Our name doesn't matter as much
As yours, after all Smith isn't a name

To mourn, but ... let’s hope they
Choose yours soon a name to speak of ...

Celebrate … your beauty, our pride
Our hopes ... for your glorious bright future.

What’s in a name? And do you care yet
Although in time you will, such responsibility

For parents to capture the infinite riches of possibility
Stored in the potential of your life ahead

The firmness of your grip suggests you will
Be strong as you grow, the smile in your enquiring eyes

Suggest that you will be seeker after truth’s promise
So you should be named for a life rich in possibilities.

We smooth the path ahead by singing the praise
Of Tuesdays child so full of grace and joy.



Tsunami

The earth trembles with tectonic echoes
As the geology shifts with elemental forces
The volcano sends out a gentle burst of steam
In the hissing morning, you brace for the impact

Then the silence, the long drawn rushing
Of the tide back, back to where the threatening
Ocean pauses, drawing back its power until
Forcefully flooding the foreshore and silence

Carrying all before it scornfully casting to one side
The structures of the cities in its path, forcing its brutal
Way along avenues where the fleeing crowds panic
And in its wake? just a tumble of wreckage upturned

Like lives torn away, uprooted people searching, desperate
For news of those they once loved and now know no more

March 15th


The season opens today, so
Today I went to the river
Stood and stared into fast
Flowing water and searched
But there was no sign of fish

I cast, sent a perfect parabola
Of line into the water, which
Grabbed my fly sweeping it
Downstream, but I cast in vain

Retrieving the fly gracefully
Allowing the fish time to strike
A slow retrieve always my
Preferred method waiting for
The chance to strike, to hook

The voracious trout for supper
Or the freezer or the smoker
But these fish are wiley, they know
The anglers’ ways and how

To avoid the traps he lays, the lures
He uses as enticement, the fish rise
I return home to read the works
Of Izaak Walton and listen to the music
Of Handel, after all the day’s excitement

St Gregory’s Vale of Lune

plain glass would have been enough
they would have seen The Howgills on a sunny
summer afternoon or wreathed in mist or deep snow
their reflections might have been on nature
its glory and its many varied seasons as they laboured
bringing progress and the railway to the isolated valley

but this was an age of steam of making and transforming
so instead amazing stained glass scenes were designed
to tell a different story natures glory seen through
pre-lapsarian scenes designed to calm the rough, working men
whilst the preachers word calls them to repentance

these scenes drawn from memory and life stories from scripture, images from the Cumbrian fells the tree of life laden with the fruit of knowledge absent human footprints unspoiling the bucolic vision
no naked pictures of Eve or Adams’ lost innocence to stir wickedness just the startled hare the deer the rabbit give the sense

making these panes in the sulphuric atmosphere
of the city workshop leather aproned men handle the hot
glass breathe the health sapping fumes swelter in the intense heat
melting the silica sand as cobalt fumes turn the air blue
staining the workshop roof and walls molten glass poured into moulds

no hymns were sung here no prayers were offered
just the steady refrain of the railway navvies thoughts
of solidarity with the glass makers in their work
as they breathed in unison with the harmonium pedals
and the preachers solo voice soared into the lantern roof



Homecomeing

Palmerston smiled a shy
greeting, a reticent hand
waved as we approached.
‘The fishing’s poor this year’
he announced, as though
to no-one in particular.
‘Maybe there’ll be a run
before you go, maybe at high
water you might spin for Bass?
Truth to tell, there’s too much
water in the river for Trout
after all the rain we’ve had’

As we unloaded the luggage
inside, he stood aside shyly.
‘I’ve made the fire, there’s a stack of
peat. There’s plenty of dry kindling.
I’ve aired the rooms and the food
you asked for is in the pantry
but Dermot’s are out of bacon
until tomorrow’.

A bottle of Powers and five glasses
stood on the kitchen table, a hint.
‘Will you take a drink with us?’
He nodded, ‘and then I’ll be off
leave you to settle in, if you need
anything, you know where I can be found’.

Under the stars that night, in the cool
air from the lough, I unzipped to pee.
It’s good to be home I thought.
Good to be home again.

1914

(i)

My name is Frank Oswald Wilde, farrier at Mossley Pit. Each day I made my way through early morning streets, boots echoing the clatter of the girls clogs starting their shift at Medlock Mill. Then down the pit
-shaft to the stables underground and the ponies. They’re tough, full of heart, they rub silky noses against my dirty, calloused hands
gently nuzzling with soft mouths for the treats I bring, an apple
or mints, it varies their diet, hay and chopped maize, hot water
to make a mash, keeps them fettled for their work, hard gruelling
work, they only see daylight once a year, at Wakes week
Rest of the time they drag heavy wagons along the rails
loaded with Coal and Slate that weigh heavier than they do
They could smell the damp, the gas that could kill or explode
sooner than any Canary, they would warn me, I would shout the others
The day of the call-up picture I asked if I could have a pony
Just to stand with him and show how he helped the miners
how we would win the war. The answer came back from above, No!
So I held two horseshoes, people should know the ponies work

(ii)

Now here I am in France. I’d heard the ponies were being drafted
I volunteered so now I’m here, getting the ponies ready to fight
for their country, here in this bloody, never ending, war, a farrier still.
They work twenty four hours a day, quiet as lambs, carrying
food, water and ammunition to the front, starved, sodden and spent.
Little did I know, here above ground, they would still let me know
they smell the gas the Germans call dampf, the terror of the trenches
Like the Tommies these ponies die in their thousands, it makes
Me ask, which is worse, struggling on in the darkness of the pit
Or struggling here like this, blown apart and stitched together again? This terrible world they’ve entered frightens them and the poor bloody soldiers, conscripts mostly like the ponies, the blasting at the coal face is nothing compared to the barrage of the constant Guns that drown us in the rattling death of the front and the choking of the damps

(iii)

When the gas came I wasn’t ready, the gas mask was a nuisance
It scared the ponies, first I knew they started to go down, front knees
first like they were in church starting to pray, then I knew, ‘the damps’
over they went, I got the mask on too late, so I joined them in prayer
Now I’m back home, my war is over, I’ll never go down the pit again,
the airs too poor underground, I can’t breathe. They say it will kill me