Midsummer

As part of Bywell Arts Festival, a group of us gathered in St Andrew’s Churchyard on Saturday evening (22nd June) to make a Midsummer Renga.  A Churches Conservation Trust Church, it was the perfect setting for some quiet contemplation and gentle celebration of the solstice’s turning.  Bywell is named from the Old English meaning ‘a spring at the bend’ and that gave us our opening verse, the hokku.  Small fairy midges were dancing but our citronella spells seemed to keep them at bay.

Strawberry Moon

 

At a turn in the river

a well to drink from –

midsummer

 

bruised clouds

heavy air, citronella

 

within the curved wall

trace of old field boundary

hawthorn succeeded by fern

 

birds speakwu-weet wu-weet

a blackbird watches

 

women buried here

share names with the living –

Isabella, Julia, Eleanor

 

burning candle

and grass-tinted air

 

first one then another

a brief silence

then from all sides a chorus

 

flares of red on the honey stones

tell of raiders, fire and rust

 

hands drift across

the tickle and prick of grass

earth-warm, soil-soft

 

late, bee foraging

in almost nectarless rose

 

she’ll be along in a while

if the rumours are true –

strawberry moon

 

waiting for poetry

surprising, slow.

 

 

A Midsummer Renga

in St Andrew’s Churchyard, Bywell,

Northumberland,

22^ndJune, 2019.

 

 

Participants:

Birtley Aris

Jo Aris

Keren Banning

Holly Clay

Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana

Linda France

Lilly Fylypczuk

Liz Kirsopp

Martin Kirsopp

Alex Reed

Eileen Ridley

Christine Taylor

Clara May Warden