Life

Solace to roam among the stone

with fading sentiments of love,

or some simple record of each span spent,

and weighing whether ageing cups

buried here in hardened earth

if not to the brim

held enough to sip at least

and weren't forever dry.

Or worse perhaps, if broken shards

once bright and whole,

then scattered by a careless sole

lie mislaid in moss and nettle,

long now lost to all who knew

bar the bowing gate-side yew.

Yes, some slight comfort in soft imagined sighs

and whispers from the stretching past

of Love,

Dreams,

and Regret.

With pressing ears to catch reproach

for what is lost by all herein

though lives on yet

in fleeting gasps

by fools above

with time enough drink.

Dartmoor Imaginings

Ancient land born of magma and shifting crusts.

Granite stone: clapper, circles, borders and boulders.

High tor and crumbled cairn.

Oak, ash, sycamore wood.

Sometimes windblown pigmy tree.

Mossy nooks, fern-masked cranny.

Bird song and cawing crow.

Pony pack and grazing sheep.

Pools, streams, rivers and leat.

Rain, fog, snow and wind.

Baking sun and black burned bracken.

Mist in the mornings, heavens at night.

Wayside inn.

Fireside beer.

Shared old tales

of creeping ghosts.

Poetry: An Ode, Written at Bowerman's Nose

As I sit atop this lofty tor,

Looking out upon snow-ribboned moor,

I thank the Lord he made me poor

In riches yes but beauties no.

The depths of love I have for home,

So deep that only God could know,

For this here Heaven: hewn out of brome

And granite knoles that knick the fields.

This winter wind fresh spirit yields:

Within the crags and combs it bields;

Wisps up the wed the silk saxe sky

Which when waxes red sets shepherds smiling,

For come the sprites that spell the dry,

And whispers that calm the ponies whiling,

And help flit and flutter the fieldfare's wing.

O cometh those aubades that tideth the spring:

When winchats and ouzels set forth to sing

Awake the bluebells, or heather flowers

Which peep like ladies out of lakes of pink;

Lakes watered well with sweet Summer's showers.

O how shall I describe this in ink?

To say how I feel when I hear the birds?

For the strings of hearts are stronger than words,

And mine strings this snowy moorland spurs.

---

I wrote this poem a few years ago. I remember the day quite clearly. A crisp January morning atop the snow-speckled peak of Bowerman's Nose on Dartmoor. Earth's firmament was a pure blue, and the sun was shining. I'd taken my new notebook with me (a fit-in-your pocket Christmas present), having resolved that year to write more, or at least try. That I'd recently accquired a volume of Tennyson from an antique booksellers in Seaton is reflected in its more romantic features. It hopes to capture the love I felt - and still do feel - for my childhood home. Later on, I submitted the poem to The Mays, an art magazine featuring the work of Oxford and Cambridge students. In the end, my poem wasn't selected (although a painting of mine did feature). Perhaps its sentimentality proved too sickly sweet for many. In any event, I thought I'd include it here as a glimpse of the beauties of Dartmoor and the land where I grew up.