Oberon enchants his queen
I roam the Forest of Arden in dreams
seeking the forgotten bower, the tree
at the heart of everything, the trusty Oak
and the name that is rarely spoken now
hidden in wood, rising in smoke, sacrificed,
the Green Man rising in ancient wood
Herne the Hunter, never a nightmare to me,
I would run with his hounds and howl in the wind
leap with the sap in the wood that is green.
listen closely, they announce his coming
the snap of a twig
The Miner, Absolom
(a haibun)
green hill where sheep graze
white bones and coal, buried, held
seasons all the same
My grandfather worked in the mines from age thirteen to seventy. His life was closed in by mountains, the green one at the back, the dark looming one at the front and the pit head along the valley., winding the men in and out of the shaft, day after day, dawn until dusk when they came home singing
boots ring on the road
deep valley voices echo
backyard starlit smoke
They worked on their bellies or crouched, often in water for days, water that undermines rock. Shaft collapses where frequent. Life was cheap. He came home covered in coal dust to his wife and two sons, sons he was determined to keep out of the mines. Yet he loved that coal – coal that he always polished with care before lighting a fire, brushing dust off black diamond surfaces.
water breaks through rock
with wood and straining shoulders
man becomes the beam
He saved twenty lives that day, men he had known from boyhood. When his lungs were affected they laid him off, no pay, no pension, no life. He bought an insurance book with the money he had and every day he trudged over the mountains and valleys gathering pennies that would help to secure some livelihood to the widows who lost their men in the mines. He never told his wife that when a family couldn’t pay he put the pennies in for them rather than leave them unprotected.
winter, summer, fall
the mountain hangs over all
tired to the backbone
When the mines were nationalised my grandfather went straight back to the coal face despite his age. He wasn’t going to miss those days of glory. Safety was suddenly the watchword and changes were made very fast. Hot showers were installed at the pit head and the miners came home clean at last.
men stripped to the skin
hot water, steam, baptised
brothers singing hymns
The Sea Never Sleeps
On sleepless nights I drift away
to the house by the rolling sea
where the waves wash home to the shore
pulled out, away, by the moon.
The sound of the waves, the sound of my breath,
in sleep, take me, wash me away,
born on a breathe, borne on a wave
with no dreams to trouble me.
This sleep eludes me tonight.
I find myself
out on the reef
out on the windswept headland
where moonlight shines the way.
The breakers beat the granite rock.
The wind whips and pulls at my hair.
The coarse headland grass whips and sings.
The stars gliding from east to west
a line of light rises at dawn
silvered horizon, the sun.
I wander along the coastal path
past stone walls and the gentle stream,
the sweet vanilla scent of gorse.
I feel a need to keep walking.
I swing through the kissing gate,
warm, smoothed wood under my hand,
on through a field and then further
to the finger of land, reaching out,
high, high up, alone and free,
resting my gaze on the beautiful blue,
forever, curve of the bay.
Bountiful West
The cup gleams gold in the light
Golden liquid overflowing
Round bowl on a slender stem.
On the table beside it are apples.
Red, yellow, glowing,
Globed sunlight bursting with juice.
Outside in the meadow, the cows
Brown and white, gentle eyed, lowing,
As the calf pushes and pulls on the teat,
Staggers a little and suckles.
Warm milk for the jug.
A blue and white bowl holds the cream.
Blue and white is the sky above
Brown and deep the buzzing of bees
Making the foxgloves bend and bow
Under the coolness of trees
Where the earth holds the richness of leaves
And the bones of the ancestors rest
In the land of the ever blessed.
The Dreaming Path 