The Border Road
This is the road
in stories we were told,
past streams and hedgerows
and little meadows
emerald and marigold;
and dark between tall trees
whose low boughs spread peace –
like cliffs their boles
where the bank is deep;
past a wicket gate
unused of late,
of a wild forgotten place.
Then rising steep
to overlook,
across a hedge trimmed neat,
the last and loveliest valley in the land,
with its woods, lanes and mills.
Red farms asleep by the brook.
Grey farms asleep in the hills.
Turning sharp by a pine
the road rises still higher,
past a house with a tumbled yard,
cracked asbestos, chicken wire,
napping cats and broken latch,
tied with baler twine,
and tiny, tended flower patch –
to reach the high and level fields,
dust of harvest, heavy yields,
land of barren toil and wealth
that darkly lies
open to endless rolling skies.
Always some strangeness there –
a message or a token,
something that lingers in the air
around the house between valley and plain.
More than just life’s wear and tear,
the years of washing and worrying,
hard work and hard words spoken,
hope turning to despair.
Some sorrow, perhaps, or shame –
voices raised at noon,
a hand raised in silence
under the blade of the moon.
And yet no deed is known
nor ghost said to roam.
More a sense of absence,
of things that never were –
the memory or semblance
of happenings elsewhere.
A wayfarer passed once,
with book and pipe and pack,
saw everything at a glance,
but I must travel back
many times before I die –
at every stop and station of the way
must pause, gaze, delay,
and once again pass by.
And always wonder why
the wind sounds in the down spout,
frets at the gutter’s jutting edge,
along the sill’s narrow ledge,
and through wires and cables
so expressly seems to sigh;
and why the high and lonely gables
wait so pointedly against the sky,
where upper windows reflect the light
of dawns and sunsets far
beyond my sight.
This is the road.
Leaving the Farm
Goodbye old shed, all shut now and dark,
the horse in the meadow, untroubled sky;
O woods and far hills I bid you goodbye,
and Bob the Rott with his fearsome bark.
Goodbye stout oak and tall wandering ash,
old cars in the long grass covered in rust,
bright finches and sparrows that bathe in the dust
and swallows aloft that dip and dash.
Goodbye hens, with a nod and a cluck,
and goodbye cat asleep on a sack;
goodbye my darlings, I hope to be back,
but maybe I won’t – so goodbye and good luck.
Ultimus A Terra, Terra Remota Mea
You know that I could leave you now and travel far away
to a distance so remote and inconceivably withdrawn;
that your beloved face becoming small and pale could stray
and vanish like a snowflake in the tunnel of a storm.
This house and plot, these lanes and woods and meadows might be seen
receding rapidly below from immense suspended heights,
misty wastes of thickening cloud, and the swoop of dark between,
and night could stretch forever beyond the world’s last flickering lights.
And all our lives together would be like a fading dream,
the deepest, sweetest memories that linger in a song;
all these anxious, hopeful. striving, restless years of ours would seem
a breath that dims the window pane a moment and is gone.
Dear child of mine I lose a little part of you each day,
and you know it would be possible to go so far away.
Return Journey
In the end nature’s too strong to resist.
Beyond our power and mastery and pride
there lies one final untamed wilderness.
And yet there is a path you can explore,
that leads to where your life was first begun –
not to be born again, no remaking
but the reverse of birth: to go back deep
and curl up small and safe inside yourself,
as it was before there was anyone else;
to find a greater peace than in all sleep,
and joy, more joy than in any waking,
and time a morning mist cleared by the sun.
Nothing can ever hurt you anymore;
no fear, loss or pain nor any distress
can reach you now. All your needs are supplied.
You are whole. You are perfect. You exist.
The Music
Coming from nowhere, ending in nothing,
it is, and yet it cannot be.
A cadence that says everything
by leaving everything unsaid.
The music is so beautiful
it must be sad,
to mourn the transience of its beauty.
DIY
It started well enough
But I found that some wood had split,
and then that I’d brought the wrong screwdriver.
So I set off on a journey to another planet,
and it was not long after lift off
that my troubles really began.
Now I wander among the drifts of interstellar space
casting the wastes of glittering dust,
the litter of broken stars,
searching for screws.
Memories
I’m down to the broken bits
At the bottom of the biscuit tin,
biting on my two good teeth.
Outside the rumble of a wheely bin
and someone coughing in the street:
raucous hacking-spits.
Just to be my lonely self again,
kind thoughts and memories revive
in a place where no one knows my name
and time will heal before it flies;
filling more days with my life,
my nights with dreams where no one dies.
Dad’s in the orchard with his bees,
mum’s in the kitchen shelling peas.
I’ll Grieve No More
When I am departed hence
I’ll fear no more
the hate, the cruel indifference,
the tyrant’s curse, the fool’s decree.
When I am departed hence
I’ll want no more,
nor toil daylong for pounds or pence,
I’ll have enough for eternity
When I am departed hence
Ill grieve no more,
in a place where every sadness ends,
from all regrets and sorrow free.
When I am departed hence
safe landed on that distant shore,
I’ll walk in my first innocence
beside the infinite sea.
Child
My child, my very own, I see
You grow intelligently, as a sapling tree
Spreads and opens to its perfect form,
Farless of blight or blade, drought or storm,
And lays its lovely leaves upon the air.
Your happiness will always be
My dearest wish, my deepest prayer.
Two days
A day may come
in gentleness
when fair the weather,
and all are one
in happiness
and peace together.
But wind and water
follow after.
Parting for ever,
friend from friend
lover from lover,
a day will come
when all is done,
our story’s over
But water and wind
will never end.
Midsummer
I could smell the elderflower
even amid field. Further over
under the thick leaved trees
that hummed as I passed by
like a swarm of bees
the overarching branches broke the sky
into fragments of blue China.
How many more such summers will I see?
How many more such summers will there be?
The news and the weather
The news today
and almost any day
leaves me staring into space,
despairing of the human race.
I’d quit this world if I could choose
and I could find another
with meadows, rivers, hills and trees,
and all the creatures dear to us
and all the people that we love
and honest work and simple pleasure
I’d sail away on forget-me-not seas
far, far away, so far from the news,
and surrounded by the weather.