Deer at Brightwalton

November 1918

Twilark's Blog

Armistice.
A strange, uneasy
Shift in reality.
Silence.

The ragged, weary, dog end
Days of war
Falter,
Slip away,
Drift
Into bewilderment.
Silence.

Armistice.
Bells peal,
The strident sound fades
Into silence.

Ghosts of war
Stalk this ravaged wasteland,
Seize shredded minds,
Haunt the cursed unborn.
Frozen and numb
The living blunder on
In silence.

In memory of Tommy Kelly, aged 19, killed in action on 6th November 1918 near Arras, France. His parents Tom and Annie Kelly had already celebrated Armistice when news of his death arrived.

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Wagtails

I see a pair of wagtails
silver        and black
heads and tails bobbing
running           darting
dancing
on the patio

in a sudden breath of November
you are behind me
your tweed jacket rough
under my young fingers
that faint smell of tobacco

and the room
silver tray on the wall
      50 years of practice
oak sideboard        solid
crammed tableware papers
black and white photos
jostling
spilling
out of the doors

we are all there

laughing

Wee Mister Wagtail hopping on a rock,
Daddy says your pretty tail is like a goblin’s clock.

Meadow Cranesbill

A scattering of petals on the chalk path.

Lacemaker

I watched
her little fingers
twist and loop the thread,
push the needle
into fine lace.
This one a handkerchief,
this a piece for the table,
hunger pricked.

The size is the price.
Lay the coins end to end
along the daisy chain.

I wrote this poem when I was researching lace making. Lace was made by women and children at the time of the Irish Famine. The price of the lace was arrived at by covering the piece with coins. Most of the money went to middlemen.
From A Sense of Place

Harebell

As summer fell
Away to autumn
I found
A solitary harebell
In the long grass
Where knapweed
And yellow rattle
Flower purple and gold.

That tiny splash
Of eggshell blue caught
The ripples of the wind
And danced,
And I danced too
With sheer delight.

Six Overcoats

Although this beech tree copse is just a couple of miles from where I live it was six overcoats colder this afternoon. The icy blast from the North whipped the trees into a crazy orchestra.

We were glad to join the skeletons warming themselves by the log burner in the Courthill Tea Room.

Slugs

Today I came across
A cornucopia
Of slugs on the path.

Slimy and fat,
Yellow and grey,
This bevy of slugs
Slid away
With malicious intent
To the next banquet.

Ridgeway

When my feet
Touch this path of rusty flint
And sun bleached chalk
Present and past
Have no meaning,
It is all one
Here at the edge.

Grey wethers,
Woman and man,
Stand forever bound in stone,
Elf shot and spindle whorl
Cast aside.
Lynchettes lie fallow
Under the vast and ragged blue.
Mewing buzzards rise and wheel
Through aeons.

What is this earth,
This stone?
Blood and bone?
A restless churning tide
Of stardust?
My footsteps echo
Through the rolling
Vaults of time.

The Dance

The old man sits on the wall,

Sits and smokes his pipe.

The child dances in the puddle,

Dances on white clouds

In an upside down sky.

Water rises and falls,

Rises and falls.

The old man smokes his pipe.

Blue smoke billows

And curls ever upwards.