Today's poet

[freckle]

Seems the National Trust are launching another one of those 'Britain's favourite....'.This time it's landscape poetry - rather than colour.I'll investigate a bit more - but I suspect it will be Wordsworth .

Here's to more hares in the meantime ! By Vivien Jones.

HARE

It was a sloping field
tipped towards the sea,
the breeze blew
along the ground,
cooling my bare legs.

My foot was nearly down,
poised at the point where
weight shifts forward.
I may have heard
its indrawn breath
before
its silk gloved paws
glanced off my leg.
Erupting through
the tussocks, it shrank
to rabbit, then mouse.

Through the fence,
into the sea mist,
making a story
for telling to children.

I found this altogether captivating SA...i love the line about silk gloved paws....awesome!
i look forward to hearing more about the landscape poems!

I have been mostly pottering today bar a tea time trip to the beach, it was so chilled down there inspite of the inspite of the flying ants! the clouds were brilliant...........

Ode to separation

Lying here on the Long Sands
Cloud gazing I wonder
If you might see this very same Cumulus
Or a version, carried by a trade wind, transformed
A configuration of the very same vapour
Which if gravity persists
Might fall and even touch
You.

[Alf]

I found this altogether captivating SA...i love the line about silk gloved paws....awesome!
i look forward to hearing more about the landscape poems!

I have been mostly pottering today bar a tea time trip to the beach, it was so chilled down there inspite of the inspite of the flying ants! the clouds were brilliant...........

Ode to separation

Lying here on the Long Sands
Cloud gazing I wonder
If you might see this very same Cumulus
Or a version, carried by a trade wind, transformed
A configuration of the very same vapour
Which if gravity persists
Might fall and even touch
You.

That's gorgeous freckle

I have been "pottering" about in the Howgills this weekend (didn't bump into Harry though ? )

A few lines from Wordsworth's "Intimations of Immortality..." I think I have quoted from before.

The clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;
Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears

[freckle]

That's gorgeous freckle

I have been "pottering" about in the Howgills this weekend (didn't bump into Harry though ? )

A few lines from Wordsworth's "Intimations of Immortality..." I think I have quoted from before.

The clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;
Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears

The Howgills are beautiful aren't they? something bleak and solitary about them that I really like. I will never forget when I went to watch the Tebay race and just before Harry (who i think is on his hols at present) came over the top of the hill, about five black horses descended down it with such ease, it was really something!.......actually harry made it look a bit easy too to be honest!

anyhoo, that poem is gorgeous and the last line so true, well observed and enigmatic!

[freckle]

Mmmm there is a conflict is there not in matters of the heart, whether to throw oneself in and get carried away, or to show reserve, caution. I reckon Auden is talking about such a conflict in this here poem......oh and of course time and death and that!


As I Walked Out One Evening


As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
'Love has no ending.

'I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,

'I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

'The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.'

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
'O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

'In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

'In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

'Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.

'O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.

'The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

'Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.

'O look, look in the mirror?
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

'O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.'

It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.

WH Auden

[Alf]

The Howgills are beautiful aren't they? something bleak and solitary about them that I really like. I will never forget when I went to watch the Tebay race and just before Harry (who i think is on his hols at present) came over the top of the hill, about five black horses descended down it with such ease, it was really something!.......actually harry made it look a bit easy too to be honest!

anyhoo, that poem is gorgeous and the last line so true, well observed and enigmatic!

I saw some black horses as well at Sedbergh and I couldn't believe how clean they were as though they were groomed daily? They were on the top of the hill between Fairmile Beck and Blind Gill if I remember correctly

The Langdale Beck valley between Simon's seat and Hazelgill Knott always gives me a bit of a buzz when I descend into it and the contour path round to Black Force is a joy to run.

While I was negotiating Hazelgill Knott at Sedbergh I could see right across to the wonderfully named Randygill Top which was the highest point of the Weasdale Race I had done the day before. It sort of connected the two days and was one of those "God its great to be alive and fit enough(just!) to do this" moments

[freckle]

I saw some black horses as well at Sedbergh and I couldn't believe how clean they were as though they were groomed daily? They were on the top of the hill between Fairmile Beck and Blind Gill if I remember correctly

The Langdale Beck valley between Simon's seat and Hazelgill Knott always gives me a bit of a buzz when I descend into it and the contour path round to Black Force is a joy to run.

While I was negotiating Hazelgill Knott at Sedbergh I could see right across to the wonderfully named Randygill Top which was the highest point of the Weasdale Race I had done the day before. It sort of connected the two days and was one of those "God its great to be alive and fit enough(just!) to do this" moments

thats a wonderful account Alf, made me wish that I was there again! :-)

[stevefoster]

I saw some black horses as well at Sedbergh and I couldn't believe how clean they were as though they were groomed daily? They were on the top of the hill between Fairmile Beck and Blind Gill if I remember correctly

I saw them Fell Ponies too Alf, they liked my vest:wink:
Last year (my first Sedburgh) was poor visibilty, yesterday was a joy to behold.

[freckle]

Well Sunbeam Alpine has just made me aware of the Durham Literary Festival which has a shed loads of poets performing at very reasonable prices...see below:

http://www.bookfestival.org.uk/festival-programme.html

Simon Armi and his pals are on thursday 21 Oct
another poetry gig on Sat 23rd Oct and Jo Shapcott and some others on 23 Oct in the afternoon.

I think it would be great if we could organise some kind of fell poet run on one of those days followed by a gig at the night (clearly I need to factor food and ale in somewhere!). I have looked at the race calender and there doesn't appear to be any near then so we would have to come up with a route ourself. We needn't be committed to running in the Durham area just as long as we could be there for the evening. There is Northumberland or we could do North Yorks then travel up? I have a hankering to do some more running around Teasdale for example.

Sooooooo.........what do people think? Are you in?

[freckle]

Pascale Petit will be reading at the Durham literary festival alongside Jo Shapcott...her work seems really interesting, apparently she was an artist before she was a poet which kind of doesn't suprise you given the level of imagery she uses...anyhow I liked this one...

The Wounded Deer

I have a woman's face
but I'm a little stag,
because I had the balls
to come this far into the forest,
to where the trees are broken.
The nine points of my antlers
have battled
with the nine arrows in my hide.

I can hear the bone-saw
in the ocean on the horizon.
I emerged from the waters
of the Hospital for Special Surgery.
It had deep blue under-rooms.

And once, when I opened my eyes
too quickly after the graft,
I could see right through
all the glass ceilings,
up to where lightning forked
across the New York sky
like the antlers of sky-deer,
rain arrowing the herd.

Small and dainty as I am
I escaped into this canvas,
where I look back at you
in your steel corset, painting
the last splash on my hoof.

[Mossdog]

Love After Love

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott