Nice choices Mossdog and Alf.
Moon Compasses
I stole forth dimly in the dripping pause
Between two downpours to see what there was.
And a masked moon had spread down compass rays
To a cone mountain in the midnight haze,
As if the final estimate were hers;
And as it measured in her calipers,
The mountain stood exalted in its place
So love will take between the hands a face...
Robert Frost
Been a while.... but a recent glut of races and some very close inter-club rivalries inspired my first poem for months. Hope it rings true for folks, esp those who have people in their club and local racing scene who they regularly do battle with!
Race Day
Colour coded clubmates huddle
stretching limbs in preparation
and truths in compensation
in case things do not go well
in today’s athletic quest
number on vest
target in head
beat Bill today, put last week to bed
get under forty minutes dead
and ‘don’t go out too fast’
you tell the lads and lasses that you don’t want coming past
but there’s no falling for the ruse
the red mist sees to that
when the mayor shouts Go!
and off you pelt knowing that this can’t go on
but hoping Bill blinks first
and you hang on to the last
recovering to shake his hand
in the dire straits of the tired funnel
and pass him the half-full polystyrene cup
that marks our private trophy
that’s mine for at least a week
when we do it all again
in some other near flung car park
or some far flung mountainside
Last edited by OneOffPoet; 24-10-2013 at 12:13 AM.
That's really excellent OOP - thank you for sharing. It captures the spirit of your fell running quest so well. And yet, how strange, to me the experience of fell running is so very different (no better, no worse, just different)and shows the vast wealth of experience this sport/life style is able to offer.
Am Yisrael Chai
This is a bit lengthy, but it captures the full spirit for me of so much that takes me to the fells again and again.
Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798
Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur.—Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!
With some uncertain notice, as might seem
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire
The Hermit sits alone.
These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind
With tranquil restoration:—feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened:—that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on,—
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.
If this
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft—
In darkness and amid the many shapes
Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart—
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,
O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee!
And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again:
While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food
For future years. And so I dare to hope,
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first
I came among these hills; when like a roe
I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
Wherever nature led: more like a man
Flying from something that he dreads, than one
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days
And their glad animal movements all gone by)
To me was all in all.—I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, not any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts
Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompense. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue.—And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature and the language of the sense
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.
Nor perchance,
If I were not thus taught, should I the more
Suffer my genial spirits to decay:
For thou art with me here upon the banks
Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend,
My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once,
My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make,
Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain-winds be free
To blow against thee: and, in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance—
If I should be where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence—wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshipper of Nature, hither came
Unwearied in that service: rather say
With warmer love—oh! with far deeper zeal
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Am Yisrael Chai
I had a great weekend at our first local literary festival. It was a big success so I hope it will return next year. Simon Armitage and Carol Ann Duffy were excellent. Simon Armitage showed a lot his work he has written for TV over the years while Carol Ann Duffy did a more traditional reading which she managed well despite a sore throat. Both readings were sold out.
This is a protest poem she wrote when Royal Mail announced they didn't want Counties putting on addresses anymore. Just to rub it in the last line is borrowed from Adlestrop by Edward Thomas.
The Counties
But I want to write to an Essex girl,
greeting her warmly.
But I want to write to a Shropshire lad,
brave boy, home from the army,
and I want to write to the Lincolnshire Poacher
to hear of his hare
and to an aunt in Bedfordshire
who makes a wooden hill of her stair.
But I want to post a rose to a Lancashire lass,
red, I'll pick it,
and I want to write to a Middlesex mate
for tickets for cricket.
But I want to write to the Ayrshire cheesemaker
and his good cow
and it is my duty to write to the Queen at Berkshire
in praise of Slough.
But I want to write to the National Poet of Wales at Ceredigion
in celebration
and I want to write to the Dorset Giant
in admiration
and I want to write to a widow in Rutland
in commiseration
and to the Inland Revenue in Yorkshire
in desperation.
But I want to write to my uncle in Clackmannanshire
in his kilt
and to my scrumptious cousin in Somerset
with her cidery lilt.
But I want to write to two ladies in Denbighshire,
near Llangollen
and I want to write to a laddie in Lanarkshire,
Dear Lachlan …
But I want to write to the Cheshire Cat,
returning its smile.
But I want to write the names of the Counties down
for my own child
and may they never be lost to her …
all the birds of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire...
Carol Ann Duffy
I really enjoyed this O-O-P! Mastering the start-line bullshit is one of the most important tasks for any aspiring fell runner.
Originally Posted by OneOffPoet
Glad you liked itI think fell racing is the high octane end of the spectrum which inspired this poem. When I'm out on my own in the fells it's a very different beast, much like what I think you're alluding to, ie an energetic form of meditation. I'd be lost without that too. In fact, I feel a part two coming on....
OW, I do love a bit of start line BSMost of it is kidding oneself more than one's competitors! I like to think its a bit of an art form
Last edited by OneOffPoet; 29-10-2013 at 12:04 AM.
The Truth of the Matter
I’m not here for a bit of fun
This is not a training run
Not a single thing wrong
My ankles are strong
Fully fit
Ready for it
Start quickly
Run til I’m sickly
And on no account will I just enjoy this one.
How good to see some new and original fell poetry on here. Well done Oneoff and OW! You've got me thinking about my own experience of the startline. It is so different to my solo meditative runs or weekend runs with Stolly. At Edale Skyline I stood there thinking 'why I am I doing this? I feel sick with nerves!' but I loved the race. The challenge and pitting myself against myself. It'd be great to sum it up poetically. Not sure if I could though.
or as you said at this years Blaydon..."I think I might win this one" !
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