Wordlessly I rise to answer a long-ago call.
I admire the rainbow but I say nothing at all.
But I notice.
The exhausted frown that she tried to hide.
All the painful truths that she openly denies.
I notice.
The songs that she plays on the radio and sings to on a summer day.
The laughter of the people around us while we dance and play.
I notice.
The wind blowing through her hair while she stares into the night sky.
The sound of the river rapids close to her feet while she enjoys a pie.
I notice.
Whenever their lilting voice falters; whenever they dare to speak aloud.
Their courage on the stage where they dared to sing in front of a crowd.
I notice.
The friends who tell him they care for him but don't actually show it.
The family that comforts and consoles him in those required moments.
I notice.
The cobblestones along the streets, light posts, trees and gardens.
All the chirping birds and fluttering butterflies near the closest fens.
I notice.
It doesn't matter if I am actually here
nor there -- even if it feels like I'm everywhere.
I will always notice.
How was it, have you got a slot
You ordered Lucozade, prawn toasts
And Garibaldi crisps, I thought
Your favourites, have you got those?
It was so hot today, I sat
Behind closed curtains, overwhelmed
With RVW full set
I passed the fens you know so well
I played the Norfolk Rhapsody
I watched the recent film of Cromer
And through that haunting melody
I saw the waters rolling over
And splashing softly at the pier
Where once you stood against the sky
I was beside, and from the rear
The seagulls cried for you and I.
Snipe and Curlew are skating on the mist
they sing of the water
that sky-water which sways to their songs.
Flat is this land with no coastal margins,
here I am the peak of a mountain
my coated form
darkly winged with strange desires,
an ardor compelled to rain down
upon these wandering streams,
to babble and pour in the Wash is my pleasure.
Osprey skim between the worlds
as they plow the brume and drizzle.
Silver trout dangle in the air
hooked by the wringing and the wet,
the taloned and the dunking beak.
You gandering Grebs where are you gone?
O yes, you are swimming a soaking river
betwixt the two poles of this sodden world,
you wade and paddle, dip with a breezy ease -
with dauntless sweeps you divide the oceans.
Blurred bushes rush by
Brain bends
Time out far across the fens
A solitary heron flaps
The pterodactyl lazy loads
A flyover of long strokes
Of reed brushes
Eels writhe
A dog trotting
Leaps across the dyke
A wand of estuary birds
Cast up from the land
Coloured sand vast across the morning sky
The power when it comes
Succumb
The trickle of Wicken Fen.
seduction sits in the prepotence
deep blues inviting
to engulf
in the wading of her fens
without apprehension
she is slayed
endorphins exploding in air
fear interrupting of night
swords driven tight
in the waning and the might
my blood is now lain upon your hands
I lick the droplets running down your legs
consuming of what is and what was life
contentment fogging up
the vision of an attractive mind
~~~~~
she has a way of making things better
even when the devil has stepped
directly in front of my way
From the miles of flatness and the fens
Comes the hill where this Cathedral stands
Everyone can see this floodlit site
When the moon is out and there is night.
I saw it through the window as I turned
It’ struck me down with beauty never learnt.
As I lay surprised upon the stair
I absorbed the beauty I saw there
Should we worship beauty such as this?
It strikes us with a hammer not a kiss
I
Newtown, South Africa, may inspire some day
Through this time here, I must turn senses away
From adults sending kids to buy "loose smokes"
And even ears from women cussing moms, sex jokes!
II
For inspiration, I must remember to look up also
Clouds always yield forms, names, games galore
And away from plastics, pollution ... naturally
Trash trucks come each Wednesday; ignored outstandingly
III
To each clump of Acacia; hail beaten patch of cacti;
Sole tree that comorants dry their wings on, daily
And note how Nature, Life, does not quit ... growing
As we must: quiet lotuses in fens with slime ... flowing
Once were badgers in leafy dale,
once were rabbits and foxes too,
once were pheasants in shining copse where cuckoopint and coltsfoot grew.
Once were songbirds in privet hedges,
once were bluebells for mile upon mile,
once were dark woods cool and shading hiding squirrels and foxes guile.
Once were home fed pigs and poultry,
once were food with proper taste,
once were marls with mirrored water, but now they only hold our waste.
Once were farmers in umber meadow,
once were colliers in village pit,
once were taverns for quenching thirst where now the townie and tourist sit.
Once were fens and fields and down-lands,
once were moorhen and curlews call,
once were stewards of Gods own country, where now there is but urban sprawl.
Once were leaders of Albion's masses,
once were statesmen of unbending word,
once was a land that was fit for heroes, where now only spin and deceit are heard.
Wulf and Eadwacer
ancient Anglo-Saxon poem
loose translation by Michael R. Burch
My clan's curs pursue him like crippled game;
they'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
It is otherwise with us.
Wulf's on one island; we're on another.
His island's a fortress, fastened by fens. (fastened=secured)
Here, bloodthirsty curs howl for carnage.
They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
It is otherwise with us.
My heart pursued Wulf like a panting hound,
but whenever it rained—how I wept!—
the boldest cur grasped me in his paws:
good feelings for him, but for me loathsome!
Wulf, O, my Wulf, my ache for you
has made me sick; your seldom-comings
have left me famished, deprived of real meat.
Have you heard, Eadwacer? Watchdog!
A wolf has borne our wretched whelp to the woods!
One can easily sever what never was one:
our song together.
Come we will an the road is open,
Come we will an the door swings ajar,
The land we glimpsed longing from fens afar,
Shall now be ours to make or mar!
Unto the gate we shall be holpen,
There with ye forever spar.
Perish not, then; cry instead, 'War! War! War! '
After, the doom lies no more in fist or star!
The land of clouds where suns rain down,
The land of roses where tulips are;
Land of the living where the dead croon,
Land of misery where joys scar!
Lady of our heart, bane of our soul!
Cradle of our carcasses, stinking hole!
Land of lightening, land of love!
Haunt of the eagle, refuge of the dove!
We come, O Land of the Lost!
We come in a trice, gauze bannered host,
War we shall, against thy woes,
With axe and hoe and thy own foes!
Oh Lord they come again in brilliant hue
cold ghosts so long thought dead beneath the snow
arise, in flaunting presence overdue
upon the thatch brown bed - clear hoar frost glow
clings to the softening edge of winter’s grip
an echoed crack of ice its passing blow
in fated end to her long cyclic trip
succumbing to the whims of passing winds
rippling thru tall Maples slow sap drip
wet rabbits skirt the edges of the fens
to dine upon first buds of greening shoots
plump robins build their nests in silent glens
watched by the moon the mating owl hoots
as nature hits default and spring reboots
©4/29/2019
Quirky Tercets Poetry Contest
Nina Parmenter sponsor
NATURE NONSENSE
In the glens
by the fens
little foxes in their dens.
Among the pines
grow the vines
little squirrels use as blinds
In the brook
under foot
little fish caught by the hook.
In the sky
see them try
little eaglets learn to fly.
In the trees
full of leaves
little bear cubs hide with ease.
In the ponds
among the fronds
little frogs sing their songs.
As I stand
in the sand
I behold nature grand
I
Grey spaces, but the day has broken
Hope rubs an eye, turns back to snooze
Clear water in mason jar hold one life
No frills, no leaves, ochre lotus intrudes ...
Hopes falling into grey sleep
II
Sometimes a solitary dandelion defies
All the cruelty, machinery of man, mowing all
That stick out rebel-like in manicured lawns of his lives
His dreams, his families, his nations small
Or huge - no matter but his mind ... Korea is small!
III
Field of yellow dandelions
Like a million galaxies with their suns
Daring darkness to do its worst
Or that single lotus in the fens ...
Of our concomitant creation (beauty? beast?)
IV
There where imagination has married vision
A mustang survives yet another depredation
Emerging among the blood-red poppies
Bold ... daring even woman to tame his Spirit
If she could ever catch whatever happiness is
Today, I saw a young man die
I watched men pull their triggers
I heard women exclaim and sigh
Across her chest, another clasped her fingers.
“Tell me, what was his crime?”
I asked. “What was his offence?
Why end a life in its prime?”
The reply: “E jump pesin fens!”
“Whose fence?”, I asked.
“Dat politishan fens. Na food e go tif.”
I walked on, emotions unmasked
Lost in deep thoughts mixed with grief.
In 1961 it’s for a weekend away
On a grey winter Friday.
Out from London,
We drive north on
The A10 to the Wash.
Beyond Ely it’s flat and bleak.
It’s an impression we seek
Of a region we’ve not seen
Where at Christmas the Queen
Is at Sandringham near the Wash.
But all we see on either side
Are drainage canals and rushes that hide
Miles of flat fens, and more again,
Lashed by wind, swept by rain.
It is not attractive, the Wash.
Now the sun’s set
And it’s cold and wet.
So we seek and find an inn
Next’ the Ouse in King’s Lynn.
We’ll overnight near the Wash.
Inside the inn we sit and dine
Beside the hearth where the brasses shine.
Then we spend the night
Both warm and tight.
In the morn we leave the Wash.
To-night from a shelf I snap
Down the ‘one-inch’ map,
Numbered “124 King’s Lynn”.
It oozes warm memories of an inn
Where 45 years ago we were in love near the Wash.
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