Migrations

Like geese arrive in winter,

the people I love returned.

The house was full of their laughter.
Their conversations ebbed and flowed in every room.

Then as quickly as they came they left again.
Silence grew like cobwebs in the empty spaces of the house.

And now the woodlands beckon me

for if there is to be silence I will choose the silence of the trees 

and if there is to be loneliness it is the loneliness of forest I would crave.

So I will find myself a hidden place within a womb of woods,

a nest between the fissured trunks;

and under arching limbs.

I will curl up small and rest my head

on banks of bracken watching the grey relentless clouds pass by.

      

And I will sleep;

my dreams infused with moss and sap and old dead leaves

until the sadness seeps away.    

(C) A McNaught 

Austerity Haikus

A sleepless night convalescing from a nasty chest infection gave plenty of time to think about the way our communities - schools, libraries, hospitals, housing -are being dismantled. I would be less cynical if there was the slightest shred of evidence that 'we are all in this together'. We're not. 

These are the haikus:


#1 the Beast

Like a mythic beast
inequality devours
our children's future.


#2 the Thieves

Those who know no want
stealing from the people's purse...
then blaming victims.


#3 the Auction

Sell the schools, close down
the libraries; all centres
where the needy go.


#4 the Strategy

Underfund all things
until they fail. Then sell them
cheaply to your friends.

#5 the Lie

Tell the lie again
"Tax is bad". Forget the truth;
strong communities.

#6 the Fearmonger

Urge the status quo
"Better the Devil you know"
(says the known devil)

(c) Alistair McNaught

In by starlight

I slid out when the tide was high 
but the sun was easing itself 
towards the horizon.

It snagged on a mountain
and with a hiss of escaping gold 
it shrank away;
but the passing clouds
were sprayed with light in a thousand 
shades of warmth.

Out on the waters I watched with 
childish wonder as colours I could never name 
danced and swirled in bright reflection;  
oiling the surface with a liquid light.

And as the sun died the wind grew.
The waves slowly organized themselves, 
jostling and shoving until long lines began to move together.

I let them lead me,
lying back as they rode towards me,  
squeezed beneath me,
rocked me gently,
brushed me shorewards.

One by one the stars appeared,
lighting the ragged gaps between the clouds.
With the fading light the wind sank to a sigh; 
the gaps between the clouds grew large and 
lonely stars joined constellations.

I came in by starlight,
hissing gently on the water,
riding on the dance of reflected constellations 
until I grounded 
on the dark, wet sand.


(c) A McNaught

Cluj Napoca by night

In the dark and cobbled streets 
I followed the liquid cats that flowed through the inky shadows 
sliding, gliding 
under the sleeping cars.

Faint noises   
leaked from the open windows
into the warm night air.
Syllables of speech butterflied above my head;  
moths of invisible meaning fluttered  to the place 
where conversations go to when they die. 

This city was not always so. 
The wooden doors still hold an echo of the ancient woods;
every contoured grain a signature of summers long since gone.

Trees still line the streets, lean from courtyard gardens with their elbows on the wall, peering with sightless eyes at where their neighbours used to be. 

Their sap still rises from the forest soil beneath the streets. 
The birds still sing.  
Crickets serenade the grass as if it were a meadow still.

Walking slowly, silently, alone, 
I let the ghosts of woodland whisper 
through the cobbled streets and castellated walls.

The crickets call; the summer nightwind tousles trees 
and in the darkness of the gardens lope the ghosts of wolves; 
a haunting howling drifting on the breeze. 


(c) A McNaught

Illuminati

In a caravan by Plaitford Common

An August storm spawned a tantrum wind that stomped across the heath, kicking the heather, shaking the gorse and slapping the tails of donkeys.

A misty rain muttered in the treetops but the leaves, conciliatory as ever, simply nodded and agreed. 

The thirsty earth drew the water downward. 
Dry bones of soil soaked up the welcome wetness 
and the worms rose silently;  
like long pink tendrils of a tender plant. 

But it was night; 
a dark, buffeting blackness
stretched from the shivering leaves 
to the shape-shiftlng clouds in the showering sky. 

Slowly I sank in the ocean of sleep rocked by the wind and  
lulled by the rain on the roof 
like a long lullaby.  

 

(c) A McNaught

The talking tree is silent now

It was me to blame.

The forester was unaware that your immensity of height
was held together by the thinnest barrel ring of wood where rot
had hollowed out your beechen heart.

"Listen" I said
and they heard the creak and strain of bark.
"The talking tree we call it, when the wind runs by."

It always hurts to see a tree come down.
To see the trunk stagger and the airy boughs bow low,
scattering their leaves and flowers on the forest floor,
is like watching a bird with broken wings
or a fish in the long slow suffocation of air.

The sky is thinner now, the intricately folded spaces of the canopy are gone, the rich rune of branch and twig has lost a volume of its poetry.

I wish I had been silent too.

(c) A McNaught