Today's poet

[Hes]

Moss...it is indeed lovely..... thank you !

here's another one in the same vein.....

Country Girl
George Mackay Brown

I make seven circles, my love
For your good breaking.
I make the gray circle of bread
And the circle of ale
And I drive the butter round in a golden ring
And I dance when you fiddle
And I turn my face with the turning sun till your
feet come in from the field.
My lamp throws a circle of light,
Then you lie for an hour in the hot unbroken
circle of my arms.

think we need to develop a FRF poem anthology with illustrations by a forumite....Hes where are you when we need ya? ..... then all we gotta do is find a publisher!

What a great idea! I'd love to illustrate something like that. I bet there are a few other artists on the forum too. I've just been catching up on this thread after a couple days of chaos with Masham Arts Festival preparations. I'm hiding at home to recover. 'Staying in' is the new 'going out'...or something!

[XRunner]

Here is a poem we posted earlier on this forum.
Written for the OMM competitors in 2008!
(with thanks to Alfred, Lord Tennyson)

Forward, the running brigade!
was there a man dismay'd ?
Not tho' the athletes knew
some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
theirs not to reason why,
theirs but to run and run,
into the valley of death
ran the six hundred

Bogs to the left of them,
bogs to the right of them,
bogs in front of them,
shattered and red faced,
ran the six hundred.
They that had run so well
came through the bog from hell.
Back from the mountain peak
all that was left of them,
left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade,
O the wild race they made.
All the world wondered.
Honour the race they made,
honour the fell brigade.
Noble six hundred.

[freckle]

Right I'm off to eat some roasted chestnuts in a minute...leaving you with another bit of romance b4 I go.... (well, it is friday after all!).....

Another very old chinese poem by Ping-Hsin

Love

To escape from thoughts of love,
I put on my fur cloak,
And ran out from the lamp lit silent house

On a tiny footpath
The bright moon peeps;
And the withered twigs on the snow-clad earth
Across and across, everywhere scrawl "Love".

Night all

[stevefoster]

Thoughts About A Bob Graham Round (Peter Travis)

I had considered such thoughts of running
fell and dale to have been severed
from my mind that once burned with hope.
But I was wrong , failure to attain
the two score and two mileage
beyond a comprehensible sanity
did not assuage the fire
that with each reading was fanned
into a burning flame which will not be quenched.

And so with eyes which scan the heart-tearing miles
that sweep the fells, I climb and run the screes,
i curse the rising steepness
I grimace at wearing pains inflicted
on my body that fights and struggles
against a force that drives it on.
All these are known to me.
For I have run these Lakeland fells
with hope that did not burgeon into reality.
My mind will not be freed
from this plaguing itch of challenge.
And so, I shall exclude all else
to make this my fulfilment
I shall free my spirit among the fells,
and I shall strive, and I shall conquer.

Thanks to freckle for the heads up
And thanks to XRunner for posting it

[Hanneke]

I'm enjoying this thread too

Hanneke, have you seen the film Il Postino? It features many Pablo Neruda poems. I have a lovely little book featuring several of them I bought after seeing the film in the mid-nineties

YES Loved it!

On another note... we once started a haiku fad on another runners forum... Well, it started because I blogged this while working from home:

Great view of the hill
from my garden while working
why not run up it?

One of the people there who also resides on this forum answered with this:

Desolate lonely moor
Buzzard soars overhead
Squelch of bog

Also appropriate when it comes to Haiku's for fell runners is one of my favourite Basho ones:

How pleasent
just once
not to see Fuji through mist

[Old Whippet]

Reminded of this earlier
Nowt to do with running or hills. Just a bit of slush for a saturdaty morning! A song, but Roy Harper is a poet.

The kettle's on, the sun has gone
another day
She offers me Tibetan tea on a flower tray
She's at the door, she wants to score
She dearly needs to say

I loved you a long time ago
Where the winds own forget-me-nots blow
But I just couldn.t let myself go
not knowing what on earth there was to know.

But I wish that I had 'cause I need you so bad
I should have had one of your children.

And across the room inside a tomb
a chance is waxed and wanes
The night is young, why are we so hung up
in each others chains
I must make her, I must take her
while the dove domains

and feel the juice run as she flies
run my winds under her sighs
as the flames of eternity rise
to lick us with the first born lash of dawn.

Oh really my dear I can't see what we fear
Sat here with ourselves in between us.

And at the door she can't say more
than just another day
and without a sound
I turn around
and I walk away.

[Harry H Howgill]

But I never saw the view

I’ve been up every Lakeland fell
Racing hard and true
I’ve followed studmarks closely
But I never saw the view

I’ve raced round all the Wainwright’s
Done BG reccies too
Head down following the map
But I never saw the view

I’ve done every Karrimor and OMM
Since 1992
My car’s covered with stickers
But I never saw the view

From the summit cairn of Gable
And from Scafell too
They say that Wasdale’s stunning
But I never saw the view

Kentmere, Fairfield, Weasdale
The most scenic horseshoe?
I’ve even done the Anni Waltz
But I never saw the view

I’ve followed calves and ankles
Vests of green and blue
I know all the shortest routes and lines
But I never saw the view

One day I’ve promised to myself
When my racing's through
I’ll climb back up to every top
Sit down, breathe in that view

[XRunner]

But I never saw the view

One day I’ve promised to myself
When my racing's through
I’ll climb back up to every top
Sit down, breathe in that view

Harry, you should join us at the back of the field, we always enjoy the view.

[Old Whippet]

HHH
These are wonderful. What I don't know is are you creating these poems for this thread or have you been doing this for ages and have a stack of fell running poems?
I love the 'never saw the view' lines. I sometimes reflect on that (just as years ago when I used to blast around on a motorbike, I never saw more than 50 yards of tarmac).
If you had seen the view, you probably wouldn't have noticed the rock or rabbit hole that was going to break you leg!.

[Hes]

I love the 'Never saw the view' poem!

Old Whippet...maybe you should have been on my little Honda...you have plenty of time to enjoy views on that! Although I have nearly wound up in hedges trying to watch barn owls or hares in the field whilst riding along the country lanes.