Quickening

Dear Reader,

                                                            Shepherds Huts, both modern and ancient.

Leonard Mascal, a 16th-century writer, who was reputed to have become Chief Farrier to James I, produced a number of very early works regarding rural life.  The Shepherds hut was first mentioned in a book he wrote in l596, indicating the shepherd's importance in the farming community.   In the 19th and 20th centuries the hut was used by shepherds during the lambing season, the hut itself being a kitchen, dining room, bedroom, sitting room and storeroom all rolled into one, and the old huts had stoves in one corner for cooking and a window on each side so the shepherd could see his flock.  To be able to hear the sheep a hinged stable door was positioned away from the prevailing winds.

I think Lady Chatterley and her lover gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors, enjoyed their trysts and passionate lovemaking in a shepherds hut such as you can see in the top picture.  I would have thought it must have been a bit draughty in the winter months, but perhaps they were too busy to notice.


                                                                           *       



Quickening

I want the pulse of life that has been asleep
to wake, embrace me, put on the light.
To hear the thrush, song-repeat, to keep
my trust in God to hurry icy winter's flight.
I want to glimpse, under sodden leaves, green shoots
to announce life's circle, its beginnings, have begun.
I want to run barefoot, abandon boots,
to walk through primrose paths, savour the sun.
I want to take off winter's dress, change its season,
to see the coloured petticoats of spring, bloom
and show us mortals nature's reason
to start afresh, admire the peacock's plume.
Cellar the coal, brush ashes from the fire,
I want to intertwine, my love, quicken, feel desire.


                                                                             *

Very best wishes, Patricia


                                                          

Truth Modern

                                                                         A Garden Gnome


Dear Reader,

In the Renaissance the gnome was a magical and diminutive spirit, first introduced in the l6th century by Paracelsus, the Swiss German philosopher, and later adopted by modern fantasy literature.  The gnome is generally thought to be a small humanoid that lives underground.


However I understand, sadly,  that the Garden Gnome has become an endangered species in Britain.  He is no longer welcome to adorn our gardens or cheer us up.  There has been, apparently, a huge fall in sales.  The Garden Gnome was invented in l9th-century Germany, and introduced to Britain in 1847 by Sir Charles Edmund Isham, a renowned gardener.  But the love affair between gnomes and the British peaked in the l970s after those who manufactured them changed their look, dressing them in daft costumes.  I think having a gnome in your garden was/is a bit "tacky" or even sinister or "naff", and 94% of people asked said "they would never have a gnome in their garden".  But for those of us who secretly quite like gnomes, we can take heart because there is new breed of giant gnomes being made to come out this summer, and one of them is shaped as the Queen.

                                                                           *

Truth Modern


Through a kaleidoscope's
shifting, bright colours,
set close to the eye,
the viewer's truth is reflected,
assuring the mind of its veracity,
acknowledging its fantasies
as realities,
seeing truth
not as it is, but as we would
like it to be,
spinning words,
detaching truth from its moorings,
setting it loose in murky waters.
Illusions of truth
sandwiched between lies
is the authentic truth
of our times.

                                                                           *

Very best wishes,  Patricia

Spring Fair

Dear Reader,

                                                                A farmyard with nothing much happening

If by chance you don't listen to The Archers, it is a radio soap that started in l95l and was billed as "an everyday story of country folk", giving out advice on farming matters to help farmers after the war,  but which is now known as a "contemporary drama in a rural setting".  The story line lately has been controversial, telling us about one of the female characters being abused by her husband.  I don't particularly like the story and hope it is all resolved very soon, but that is not the point I wanted to make.  A journalist, Libby Purves, wrote in a newspaper article last week that lots of people have given up listening to The Archers because it is so boring.  "Interminable pub chat, faux-yokel accents, village hall repairs and dairy emergencies" are a few of the things she listed that made the programme so dull.

But, for myself, I like the programme to be dull and predictable, where nothing much happens.  Ambridge is a safe haven in my head, listening to David moaning on about his cows or that it has or hasn't rained lately, is just what I like to hear when peeling the potatoes for supper.  I don't want excitement in Ambridge, I want soothing and the reassurance that all is well with the world.  Philip Larkin once said: "most of the time to most people, nothing much happens".  Nothing much happening is just how I like it and if I want excitement, which I don't, I could listen to the news.

                                                                           
                                                                            *


Spring Fair

The young girl
and her mother, holding hands,
hurry down the hill
where the bright lights beckon,
see the big dippers hurtling,
painted horses swirling, yellow
swing boats diving, swooping,
smell the grease and diesel
hear the loud beat of music,
the children's screams.

Young men of the fair,
long-haired, dark, a little wild,
eye the girls with bright,
knowing looks.
The air is full of restlessness, of quickening,
an urgency to act
before the end of the night,
when morning light will move them on.  

Dusk falls, the young girl drops her mother's hand,
stirred by the primal desire of early spring.
Running silently she disappears into the night, eager
to share what ancient fires of life can bring.

                                                                             *

Very best wishes, Patricia                                                               

Katie's Angels

Dear Reader,

                                                                                HAPPY EASTER


                                           

So now we have it:  The Canal and River Trust inform us that ducks do not thrive on white bread and should not eat it; it is junk food for ducks and leaves them malnourished.  Moreover, the bread which does not get eaten goes soggy and attracts rats and disease.  We are also told that chips should not be fed to ducks.  But this does not mean that children, or anyone wanting to feed ducks, have nothing to give them, because apparently they like eating lettuce, seeds, and defrosted peas.  Their favourite food however is kale.  They really love kale.  In fact it was given "a duck approval" rating of 10/10 by the Trust's testers.   I find this piece of information is a bit sad somehow.  When my children and grandchildren were little nothing was more fun than finding a river full of ducks, and throwing them bread and sometimes left-over picnic food.  And picnic food was certainly not kale, nor seeds, nor defrosted peas.  So I suspect that many families who enjoy taking their children for such a good and innocent pleasure as feeding ducks with bread will feel a bit annoyed that they will have to buy kale or seeds or lettuce leaves to feed and nourish ducks, as instructed by the Canal and River Trust.

                                                                      
                                                                          *


Katie's Angels


At dawn, driving eastwards,
mist still covering the fields,
trees ribboned in cobwebs,
sky blue and white,

she saw a rabbit, a pigeon,
and two hen pheasants,
but no cherubs, no bright light.

Much later, lost, tired,
rounding a corner she saw
gathered in the road
twenty white, white doves.

They flew up,
a breath of sunshine tipping their wings.
Ecstatic, she recognized the sign,
recognized her angels.

                                                                        *

Very best wishes,  Patricia

Realization

                                                                         Soldiers from the Herefordshire Militia

Dear Reader,


Francis Kilvert, in his diary for 18th March 1872, wrote of talking to an old man about a reprobate drunken fellow called James Davies, nicknamed 'Jim of the Dingle', who was put in the stocks at Clyro in Wales by Archdeacon Venables and the parish constable.  But 'Jim of the Dingle' had a companion as wicked as himself, and both of them belonged to the Herefordshire Militia.  When the Archdeacon and the constable had left Jim in the stocks, his friend brought an axe and beat the stocks to pieces, freeing the prisoner.  The two men then fled to Hereford, back to the Militia, and never returned to Clyro.  But the people of Clyro, seeing the stocks broken, demolished and burnt them, along with the whipping post, and no one was ever confined or whipped at Clyro again.

When people were placed in the stocks, their feet were locked into place, and sometimes their hands or heads may have been chained also.  Since stocks served as a form of outdoor public punishment, the victims were subjected to all weathers.  As a result it was not unusual for people kept in the stocks over several days to die from exposure.

                                                                            

                                                                        *

Realization

I am
part of the whole.

I am
in the first light,
the bird's first song,
the sun's first dart
through the curtain crack,
in the music of summer trees.

I am
part of the alpha,
the birth,
the awakening,
the growing and spreading,
the throbbing of life.

I am part of all suffering
hands blood-stained.
Part of the love
humanity shares and
of all good things.

I am
part of the omega,
the closing, the last light,
the call back from the dark
to the bright, eternal night.

                                                                              *

Very best wishes, Patricia

Questions

Dear Reader,

I have had a horrible cold and even more horrible cough this week which, even with the help of a multitude of pills, doesn't seem to be leaving me.  So I haven't thought of anything interesting or amusing to tell you about except, on the subject of colds and coughs, I think that people who"soldier on" when they are afflicted, spreading their germs everywhere, should think again before venturing out.

However, there is a small story to be told about today's poem.  When I wrote it I was in a Creative Writing Class in Oxford and we were asked to write a poem that rhymed.  I found this a difficult task and I am not sure why I wrote "Questions".  I think it passed muster in the class but I stupidly took it to a poetry competition at a pub in the small market town where I live.  There is an abundance of intellectual poets here, self-appointed local poets laureate of sorts, whose poetry, when it was read out, meant absolutely nothing to me. I am sure it was very clever, cool even, but pretty unintelligible to those of us uninitiated in modern academic poetry.  Well, they all thought my poem was crap.  I got no marks, and absolutely no applause.  Of course, we have to learn to take rejection, but I was a bit crestfallen at the time.  I agree it is a little on the whimsical side, but I quite like it, and wonder if you do, or not?  Do let me know.


                                                                        *

 Questions

Were the summers different then,
did the sun shine more, when
wet and cloudy days were few, when
butterflies took wing, and warm winds blew?

Did the bees collect more honey,
did we laugh more, were more things funny,
was the sea less rough, more azure,
did finer shells bewitch us on the shore?

Did roses fade so soon, wind or rain blown,
or were hedgerows so rich and pretty grown
when all the summer days were bright,
not awash with rain, but drenched in light?

Were the days so cold and dreary,
and did we ever feel so weary
of days of heat and sun and sea,
picnics, sandcastles, flasks of tea?

Did dreams then, sometimes, come true,
when love would find us, hold us too,
and make our whole world seem completely new,
when butterflies took wing, and warm winds blew?


                                                                           *

 Very best wishes, Patricia

Absent

Dear Reader,

                                                                         A Thatched Cottage


I have been thinking about birds again this week, not seagulls this time, but jackdaws. This is the story.   An historic Tithe Barn in Avebury, Wiltshire, was re-thatched in 2013 by a Mr Ed Coney.  But Mr Coney is now "soul destroyed" since the roof he re-thatched is being pulled to pieces by jackdaws.  The birds have been pulling out the straw for their nests and every attempt to stop them has failed.  Jackdaws are rogues apparently but intelligent rogues nonetheless; in fact a tame jackdaw was taught by thieves to empty a cash machine.  However, they are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act l981, making it illegal to kill them or destroy their nests, although landowners can obtain a licence to shoot them to prevent serious damage to crops or livestock.  So for the owners of this Tithe Barn, The National Trust, where everything has been tried from fake falcons to bird-scarers, there seems to be no long term-solution.  A French Cardinal once cursed the bird in the verse history of the  "Jackdaw of Rheims" and it did the trick,  so perhaps a clerical curse might be the answer at the site of this ancient barn.

*

Absent

In this spectral place

there is a sense of desolation,

of God not being here

that strikes icy cold.

In the dank, dark nave

lies a decomposing owl,

a cobwebbed confessional, worn rotten,

and on the battered altar

a smashed wooden cross.

Long ago, did sunlight venture through

the cracked, ruby-stained glass window?

Were bread and wine transformed

into Christ's body and blood? 

Did young men, expectant, marry

young women, kiss, and breathe in

the churchyard's sweet summer air?

And did tears blow away unseen

in the southern mistral winds,

after a service testifying that life was here

in this absent place?

                                                                              *

Very best wishes,  Patricia