Anderswood pines, New Forest

 A weight of years, 

time transformed, made tangible, 

given mass and substance from the air.

I wish I grew as you. 

I lack your stillness, 

am unable to accrete the years. 

I have only instability of memory, 

the semi-random recall 

based on ion channels in the brain.

But you have rings,

one inside the other, ever growing 

as the vagaries of season turn to grain.

And you have gravity,

I feel my course affected by your pull, 

I find a perturbation in my orbit. As I pass,  your presence draws me in.

How gladly I would fit my orbit here, 

among this constellation of the still and silent strong.

Let me be a wandering planet to these pines 

and in their presence find 

the peace I've craved so long.

Unremembered years

I remember nothing of it now
but there were years you fed me
spooning soft rusks into my cuckoo beak of hunger,
watching me grow, muscles filling, skin taut and elastic,
bone and cartilage expanding
to fill my place in the universe.

But now I feed you, 
cheering you like a child as spoon by spoon,
with infinite slowness, smooth yoghurt 
makes the perilous journey
from mouth to epiglottis.

Your eyes are dull, unfocused.
Your mind is much the same, 
the last remaining words lie scattered,
flickering on some neural cobweb in the brain.

And so our roles reverse, 
but yours is not the cuckoo beak of appetite I knew.
You are wren who takes her drinks in tiny sips 
syringed with caution lest you choke.

Your muscles do not fill your skin,
and ligaments shrink back to bone, 
and every day the space you take diminishes.
The universe creeps closer in 
to fill the gaps you leave.

Once you helped to grow me into life. 
Now I help your shrinking back to death, 
trying to ease the journey, spoon by spoon, 
yet never knowing if i just prolong the pain. 

It won't be long before my turn will come. 
I hope my route is swift and sure 
and not as torturous as yours.

(c) Alistair McNaught

Mostly

Mostly, we manage. One day at a time .

The night between is balm enough to mend the weary mind, 

but other days we find each minute quite sufficient burden for the soul. 

Times tyranny, relentless, rolls, steamrollering our souls beneath the weight of care .

Yet even there, and even then, the still small voice returns again in wordless symbols drawn.

That touch, that glance, that shaft of light, 

that scent, that air, that moonbright night, 

that blackbird song above the city's din. 

A second's span is all it needs; another world slips in. 

A breathing in, a breathing out, a filling of the lungs with air. We will survive, because a still small voice is there.

Forget me nots

They grew like weeds, their seeds would scatter far,
yet digging was debarred, plucking was a crime, 
until the last forget-me-not had had its time;
it’s chance to bloom.

They were beautiful, you said, and there was always room 
for innocent and lovely things to grow.

They bore their petals, fed the bees. They sowed another season’s seed. 
They beautified the concrete tubs;
they had no need for other toil,
this was enough to earn your love, to rent your garden soil.

And maybe that was how you earned our love as well,
uncomplicated warmth that all could tell was from the heart
the willingness to see the best in all
(and even when our best had yet to start).

The optimistic glass-half-full of cheer despite the other half
with sleepless worries stalking near.

And then the Tardis-heart;
some trick of time and space
that meant that every child could
find a place in your affection,
could detect some kind acceptance in your sight
even if the name remembered wasn’t always right…

Only when that last blue petal bowed were we allowed
to thin the matted green and tease the tangled roots apart. 

It feels as if our hearts 
have been there too, the thinning of our lives when you 
and your life thinned and flowed away.

But we can say, with confidence, that we, in time, will grow
from sadness to a gladness, for we know 
the life you left was brimming
with the seeds you sowed

in us.

For my Mum-in-Law, Eleanor ("Granny Lane") who died 21st October 2022.

Floristry

Carefully I choose the words I say,
as florists select flowers for their prize display.

In the centre, standing out,
tall stems of kindness, ringed about with
blossoms of compassion.

Then, quite against the fashion of the age
a deck of intertwining loyalty, the stage
on which the subtle flowers of wisdom sit,
and, under it, for all to see,
a foliage of constancy,
both soft and
evergreen.

“Less is more” they say
(as true of poetry as flower bouquet)
and so, with just a further word or two,
like “Thank you” or an “I love you”,
I tie a ribbon round it all and, quietly,

announce that this reflects
how beautiful
you look
to me.

 

Portland Bill

After another record breaking heatwave,

where we all, stupified, saw the signs
but knew not how to act,
we camped on a cliff top on Portland.

There was no grass in England anymore,
only fields of stubble or hay.
Even the trees were yellowing to autumn
long before the summer peak appeared.

On a lump of land,
squat and grey, embraced by sea,
the night fell black.

I felt the weight of stone beneath,
but in the summer stillness,
felt the weight of ocean even more,
a dark and fluid depth where
currents crept unseen offshore.

That night she called me,
caught me in her siren song and asked me
where my heart belonged.

“On land” I said, “for landscapes are my love”.
“With rivers, woods and trees.
These please my soul and make her sing.
I fear the murky depths
and monstrous things
that lurk beneath the waves
for my soul craves the light and air.”

But, standing there,
I felt a weight of water-thought,
a tide of comprehension rising from surrounding seas,
diffusing through my arteries.

For every continent on earth had ocean at its birth,
is girded round by rocks whose ground was gifted
by the sorcery of sea.
By sediment and silt and sand, the land forever changes.
Only the endless oceans, boundless sea,
maintains its ancient unity.
Even when the margins are redrawn,
it is the self same ocean that was born a billion years ago.

These whispered waters calling me tonight
flowed round articulated trilobite,
filled the fathoms with a million forms
from coccolith to coral,
crinoid to kraken.

And thus I was awakened
to the ancient lineage of waves
and offered them profoundest praise.

I slept so sound that night it seemed
seawater had transfused my blood and blessed me
as I dreamed.

Finding words for her sixty something birthday

For your birthday,
I went fishing for some words for you, 
casting my net in the ocean
of my memories.

Many memories I caught,
beautiful and glad, but then I had 
to let them go again, 
for you are bigger than my memory, 
residing in the hearts and minds of 
many more than me.

So, standing by the shore, I thought to fly a kite instead
and catch some phrases from the ocean breeze,
to seize a sentence telling how I loved 
the vast and open spaces of our shared experience.

But then I stopped and turned around
for you are solid ground and not as fickle 
as the breeze, nor changeable as rolling seas.

I look to land instead, beyond the tides 
for you are bedrock 
where the ocean of my memory resides.

But land has fewer words than I would wish.
I cannot fish for words in rock nor net them 
like a butterfly in air.

So I stood there, 
dumb and wordless on the land 
until you took my hand and held it tight in yours. 

Then there was need for words no more.

Sky and dirt

Here it hums,
the green machinery of life
left running for a billion years
uninterrupted and un-stilled;
the silent services fulfilled, unmetered
and delivered free by every leaf
on every tree and every green grass blade. 

This grace of God displayed,
this genius of creative flair,
fuelled with photons fed on air,
an interchange of sky and dirt,
a marriage made in heaven and earth,
and mediated through a tree. 

May You, in turn,

make something marvellous,

from me.

Grey Welsh rain

I walk, a speck of locomotion

on a bracken covered sandstone hill.

Beneath my feet, 

the haul and heave of gravity.

Above, a bulk of rising rock 

that shoulders sky aside and

buttresses the ocean.

But nothing lasts forever.

At a stile 

I rest my hand on stone,

all grit and angularity;

textures of a long gone landscape.

My fingers tingle at the touch.

Nerves quiver as four hundred million years

traverse the membrane of my skin.

Stock still and locked in rock,

the sand and pebbles dream.

Their dreams are long and slow, they sleep 

like drifts of silt and sediment 

in ocean's deep. 

These pebbles never knew the green of grass;

pre-dating petalled beauties of the Spring.

The song of birds was 

many hundred million years 

to come.

They only knew the continental 

heat and cold of arid air,

the naked acres aching to be owned by living things,

longing to be softened by a soil 

and wooed by worms,

entwined by roots of tree.

But only the wind’s moan broke 

the deep Devonian silence.

Dumb, the days dawned;

the nights fell soft as whispers.

A land as mute as it was deaf.

But 

once in a while, 

the summer heat would conjure cloud enough 

to birth a thundercloud that soared

until the black sky rang,

the torrents sang, the pebbles danced and roared.

Even now I hear the echo of that joy,

as grey Welsh rain

runs off the hills.

Sand and pebble, grit and grain

unfreeze from rock 

and tumble free again

for nothing,

save the grey Welsh rain, 

will last forever.

Rumination

In the company of birch
I sit, silent, 
listening.

The grey wind softly sighs
through canopies 
of freshly minted leaves. 

Whether its a sigh of wonder, 
pleasure or nostalgic longing 
for the long lost woods of memories,
I cannot say.

But what I say is this.
The bracken, elegant, uncurls;
spreads its fractal fronds towards the sun.

The insects creep, or crawl or run,
or stitch the air with humming wing.

The hidden voices of the forest sing, 
fine treble on the wind's soft bass and
silent counterpoint of Earth.

My soul sings too,
a wordless song I seem to know
from long before my birth. 

     
I have loved this Spring more than any since my youth. Covid19 spurred me to treat this Spring as if it was my last - just in case it was. But adding beauty to pragmatism was the fresh, untrammelled sky free of contrails and the green, jewelled verges uncut, unsprayed and humming with insects. 

I may not be asleep

Almost as if
to compensate
for the delicate fragility of life

or the deer-like, deft
fleet-footedness of days and years
that leap and run so swiftly
through our lives

the brain decides
to stay awake at
some unearthly hour
to let me hear the low, slow
crawl of seconds through the night.

"And this is your heart.
Did you feel the syncopated beat?
And now the red tide rises as the
blood runs down your
arteries and veins.”

Thankyou but I’d rather sleep.

"And now a second heartbeat. And a second tide
to reach down all the rivers to your fingers and your toes.
Are you ready for the third?"

Inside, the stalking fears
the what ifs, whens and why.
Outside, night noises that I never normally hear.

Through the secret hours of night
cats creep, moths sip nectar in the dark,
owls tune voices to the moon;
The big earth,
tossing slowly in its sleep,
turns towards the morning sun.

Then I read between the lines of thought,
the bubbling restlessness of head and heart
the anxious circling, vulture thoughts
with which I strive...

I may not be asleep
but, yes,
I’m very much alive.

Long time loving

Autumn it is and, bright in the bushes, berries swell,

the final push of summer’s pregnancy.

The leaves on the trees begin to pack their bags.

Slowly they stiffen, preparing to fly, 

but I stand rooted on the spot, captive in time’s tidal flows.

Layers of memory mingle and mix;

the winters I walked here, the summers and springs,

the many different types of me that wooed these woods

and loved the gentle contours of this land.

I hope you understand that

every type of me was touched by you.

When I flew like a bird, 

you were the tree in which I sang.

When I stumbled in dark caverns of the earth 

Yours was the voice that led me out again.

Unerringly, you sense the good in those around;

unstintingly, you seek to serve.

Your head and heart are full of burdens – not your own;

but burdens that you carry out of love. 

Sometimes, in dreams, I am a young man once again

and single, unattached.

I wake in panic, fearful that a slip of time might mean 

we never met or you, in wisdom, 

chose another man.

I wake and you are always there,

as constant as the trees I love,

as rooted deeply in the earth,

as spreading, lovely, in the light.

Whatever of our brief and fragile life remains

I pray that we will weather well the seasons yet to come

and, find a joy in even winter’s cold 

where crackling fires 

are stacked with logs

and stories told. 

In grateful thanks for our 40th wedding anniversary 

25th August 2019 

Ashes

If there was a place 
I’d want my ashes spread,
to see them fly,
it would be here, 
but not for all 
the normal 
reasons why.

For, already I am widely spread;
my deep affections shaken out across 
this little spur where two small valleys 
join their marshy beds.
Pheasants jangle in the tangled fen; 
a stag barks in the wood
then barks again.

My soul is buttered thickly on this birch,
so besotted by her beauty
that I could not tell
if she had caught me 
in some ancient woodland spell.

My ever fickle heart has fallen
head over heels in love 
a hundred time with pines,
and bracken banks where rabbits burrow in the sand
and marshy land where morning light 
so brightly beamed in mist 
it seemed I nearly 
worshipped all of this 
and feared it counted 
for idolatry.

My breath is mingled in this air
my soul has seeped into the soil, 
and every touch on every leaf and blade and bough 
has left a vestige of my body there that lingers now.

I only ask my ashes to be here
because I want to give a little back;
to top the soil with nutrients it lacked;
a flush of greenery from 
phosphates in my bones,
a little sweetness in the sandy soil 
from all the calcium I owned.

But if it all should seem 
too morbid or too hard, then spread
a little bit of horse 
manure instead.

Secretly they come.
As the rain dissolves autumn,
the fungi appear.

Sometimes

Sometimes,
our bodies will preempt our souls
and set the compass of our days.

It is then we come to know 
that life is bigger than our bodies;

that our bundled galaxies of cells  
are only half the story
of the life we are.

We live in what we love;
our passions and our joys 
set loose the verve 
of our vitality. 

The heavens brim with light
from distant stars long gone,
stars that flared then faded into dust.

We all, like stars, are mortal
and our days are numbered,
yet the light we shine lives on in all we love.

Count not the days
but count the places lit,
the people loved, 
the lives illuminated in some way
by what you are 
and who you choose 
to be. 

Like starlight we disperse and fade,
but not to nothingness.
The things we love absorb us.
The people we love inherit us.
The God we love receives us

with wide open arms.  

If I were you

If I were you 
and standing in the place you stand
I’d hope for people who would recognise
my need to be a hundred 
contradictory things;

to cry because I need to,
to rest because I’m weary,
to be cheerful when I’m wanting 
to defy my grief,
to be busy, just because it lubricates
the tyranny of time’s slow turning.

If I were you, 
I’d need a hug 
in eloquence of silence
for silence shared is more articulate than words.

And I would crave normality;
to talk of small things like the weather,
not because the big things are too scary
but because the small things still exist
and life, of sorts, goes on.

And yet we know we are not you.
You may need different things 
that we could scarcely know, 
and so, 
we simply wait and pray.

Our hearts, and house, 
are open to you
any day. 

Sensuous

Oh for a nose to surf the scents of autumn...

God of the gaps

Between the faith, 
the hope
and the coming together 
of life's complexities
the gaps remained, 
oblivious to reason
oblivious to supplication.

How I longed 
to bridge the gaps
on planks of prayer 
or swing across on long,
strong ropes of worship.

But the gaps 
were bigger than my faith could span 
until I cried 
"where are you now?"

But you were there 
in the void between the certainties,
in the deep doubt-chasms at my feet,
in the loneliness and anger
and the long slow drag of seconds through the night.

You have always been 
God of the gaps,
lying in the silent space between the words,
resting in the pause between the pulses, 
waiting in the hidden corners 
where our lives are overlooked 
and unremarkable.

Carry me forward, 
oblivious to all except your presence;
resting in the knowledge that
the planks may prove too short,
the rope too frayed
the gap too big…

…but God is in the gaps
and has been known 
to give us wings
from time to time.

Ducking and weaving

This strange and wonderful
spark of life you carry;
this fizz of neurons in your brain 
and engine beating in your breast 
is all the more remarkable for what it means.

It shouts aloud 'Survival'.
It boasts 'Resilience'
because it knows, 
it somehow senses, 
how your line of life has
run unbroken, back 
through generations,
ducking and weaving through war
and famine, flood and drought.

Ducking and weaving,
through occupation and invasion,
persecution, plague, disease;
catastrophes of climate change 
when ice sheets came and went.

Ducking and weaving through 
the ancient tribes, and back
beyond humanity to bloodlines 
we would scarcely recognise;
that met and mated,
nurturing their offspring 
long enough to pass
the spark of life to you.

Ducking and weaving
you dodged, you diced with death. 
Continents opened and closed,
the asteroid wreaked 
its dark destruction but,
ducking and weaving,
you survived, carrying the embers
of the miracle of life,
dazzlingly defiant in the face
of all the universe can throw.

So...

You can face today.

Birds invisible

I looked for the invisible birds
that stirred the wood with song 
and stitched the silence of the sleeping trees.

But all found was leaf-still air 
and coloured threads of melody.

I watched for the disembodied bird
shapeshifting through the trees;
the soul that sang in notes of light.

But all I saw were shadowed flittings 
on the edge of sight.

I leave the wood with webs of birdsong 
tangled in my hair and weightless 
semi-quavers feathering my skin.

I leave the wood more peacefully, by far,
than when I entered in.


Thanks to Mike and Julie for the Forest Church 'Bird' experience that provided the inspiration...
No birds were named in the making of this poem :-)

Eclipsed

You had feared it coming
for a long time;
that orbit, that inevitable intersection
where the cold dead moon
eclipsed the sun
and stole its warmth away.

And now,

by some unholy jinxing
of celestial mechanics,
the moon has parked
its darkness in your light,
forever freezing you
in black perpetual night.

Or so it seems.

And yet the sun,
resiliently fierce,
is burning still
with strength to melt
the darkness
(if you cease to trail the shadows
of the moon).

It is not your choices that assail you
but your fears.
To face the light again will hurt your eyes,
will smart your skin,
will dent your armoured pride.

But pain is all around us
all the time, on every side,
and what you currently embrace
is scarcely joy.

The trick is in the choosing;
in surrendering yourself
to hurt that makes you whole
instead of hurt
that harms.

The cold, dead, moon is on the move
and if you cease to chase its shadow stain,
the light might, 

surely, 

shine again.

Bat

Night. 

A cone of light 
around a solitary lamp 
in a solitary lane. 

Arcing in and out  
of brightness,
leather wings 
in lazy orbits fly;
flitting, twisting, tumbling 
like a moth maypoling 
round the lamp post light.   

Unseen gravities perturb 
the orbit of its flight 
but circling still it comes 
and I stand sprayed with ultrasound. 

A flood of frequencies 
too high for me to hear
wash over me. 

I wonder what I look like;
I wonder at the pictures 
that they see.

God drawn near

Whenever darkness dims

the hope of health

and happiness becomes

mere memory

of distant days;

be still and in 

the stillness

stop to hear 

the deep affection 

of the whispered 

grace of God 

draw near.

Whatever 

twists and turns 

your journey takes

however hard

or high the stakes

there is a place 

of poise and peace

where fear can fade

and noise can cease.

and you can be a nesting place

for God drawn near.

This is a reason

not to fear.

  

Rudderless

It is an odd feeling
but unexpectedly exhilirating;
an end of emotion, a distant detachment.

I have tried until I'm tired of trying.
I have given till the well ran dry
but nothing is enough
and still the failings cast their shadows
and eclipse the many things
that might be rightly praised.

So, far from the land 
and far from landmarks I once knew,
I wait some changing in the wind
to catch the fabric of these worn and tattered sails
and start to fill them once again.

Who can tell where winds will blow?
Who can tell where I will end, 
so rudderless before the storm?

For a change

Maybe I talked too much.
Maybe I was too greedy, gathering up
the little silences and filling them
with anecdotes and observtions.
Maybe I should have listened more.

But I did enjoy coming alive,
feeling the somersault of metaphor
and simile tumbling and twisting as I 
snatched at ways to describe the
wonder of this life.

And I enjoyed the juxtaposition;
speaking of our every atom being the 
'dust of exploded stars'
as cold wet rain drifted down
from dark, damp skies.

I'm sorry if you found yourself wondering
where in the acres of monologue
you might plant your own 
well grounded wisdom.

Next time, if there is 
a next time after this time,
you can sow the seeds of conversation.

I will attempt to water them
with silent and attentive listening.
For a change.

Night sailing

I have been sailing 
through a night of dreams
with a high wind
at the mast of my soul.

The ship of my emotions
tossed and heaved
through a maelstrom of memories; 
the deep swell of insecurity 
whipped to a white spume of spray.

Then I woke 
and the only waves 
were the ruffle of bedsheets;  
the only swell the rhythms of breath but
the rumble of the storm still
echoed in my head.

The morning sun glistened 
off the beads on the window,
a galaxy of water droplets, pure as light,
that might have been the morning dew
or might have been 
the stinging salt spray 
from the land
of distant dreams.

False pretences

Sometimes I surprise myself.
Unfamiliar love and grace outpour;
a kindly tide will rise and,
for a moment,
overtop my self-protective walls
to lap a life nearby.

"Where did that come from?" I ask, 
knowing how dry and parched my inner world can be.

Awkwardly, I stumble 
at the false pretence, preferring
not to knowingly deceive.
Please don't believe me to be 
better than I am...

And yet, some far off glimmer of a hope ignites.
Perhaps a metamorphosis of mind 
and heart and soul is not as
silly as it seems.

Perhaps my false pretences 
could be latent truths to nurture;
truths to grasp, 
truths to grow
beyond my wildest dreams.

Barton Clay

I misjudged.
The tide was higher than I hoped
and the sharp black teeth 
of the long-dead sharks
were underneath the waters
of an ocean somewhat colder
than the one in which 
they used to swim.

But this was a beach
and on a beach there's
never nothing you can do.

So we found the thick 
black clay amenable
to our imagination
and in the synergy 
of hand and inner eye
an Easter Island bestiary began.

Father and son became 
playmates and architects, 
advisors, competitors.

Four hours later 
we left the beach.
Sand and clay still clung;
cloying to our clothes and hands,

and we, in turn, left something
of our playful spirits clinging there,
captured in clay effigies
of comic elegance
and style.

A fair exchange that,
even now, 
can make me smile.

Five short words

When one door shuts, another opens

(so they say)

but they have never been inside this place 

where doors are closing every day.

How can this be? you ask. How can so many doors

have warning signs of loss or pain?

Don’t fret, they say, you’ll see some secret door,

some passageway that leads you out again.

You look but do not find. You wonder if

your looking is to blame?

Or if the riddle is too hard?

Or if the riddler is insane?

Time trickles on, relentless in its flow;

too fast, by far, some days; but other days too slow.

And always people tell you 

what they think you want to know.

But all you need to know is held 

in five short words:

you do not walk alone.

For there is more to life than this.

And there is more to you than flesh and bone.