The Song of Our Species

‘I think as an ecologist. But I feel as a member of a great family – one that includes the elephant and the wheat stalk as well as the schoolteacher and the industrialist. This is not a mental condition, but a spiritual condition. Poetry is a product of our history, and our history is inseparable from the natural world. Now, of course, in the hives and dungeons of the cities, poetry cannot console, it carries no weight, for the pact between the natural world and the individual has been broken. There is no more working for harvest – only hunting, for profit. Lives are no longer exercises in pleasure and valor, but only the means to the amassment of worldly goods. If poetry is ever to become meaningful to such persons, they must take the first step – away from their materially bound and self-interested lives, toward the trees, and the waterfall. It is not poetry’s fault that it has so small an audience, so little effect upon the frightened, money-loving world. Poetry, after all, is not a miracle. It is an effort to formalize (ritualize) individual moments and the transcending effects of these moments into a music that all can use. It is the song of our species.’

Mary Oliver

A few wintry verses from this past year’s renga

*

Gwen carries her own placard

I don’t want to live

on a spaceship

            what you give the forest

            the forest gives you back

I plant eight buddleia

hoping for a summer

astonished by butterflies

            defrosting the freezer

            is today’s weather

all the little suns

on my glasses

are rain

            more a question

            of when not if

our culture 

written in snow

and the planet’s on fire

            everything racing 

            wily coyote legs

a raw stillness

in the house

Arwen’s blessing

            on the short day’s back

            the long night

trailer load of logs –

alder, Matt says,

burns hot

            this will end

            this will carry on

[Quotations from Eugenio Montale, Laurie Anderson, Moshe Feldenkrais, Octavia Butler, Henrik Blind.]

New Year

As we make the time, so we make the weather.

Wishing you and your world a year of kindness and simplicity.

Here’s a reverse renga made from a selection of verses from the year renga I kept in 2020. It’s a good touchstone practice for days that make strange demands – a river to swim in and carry you along.

There should be a little more space between the verses which I can’t quite make happen in this format, so best take a breath as they unfold. Hope’s there’s something among or behind the lines for you to ponder and take with you into the new year.

Be well.

L

x

Le Temps 

Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.

                                                            Albert Camus

I

*

            You give me a word

            for the heart’s weather 

driving into Newcastle

as if we were travelling

to Samarkand

            how to feel sad

            without being sad

spiked with caffeine

overnight snow

dreaming yourself into existence

            bars of rain 

            on the sitting room window

one more winter

the same larches

an untranslatable decade

            the flowers don’t know

            it’s November

every year 

her body 

remembers his birthday

                nothing blowing

                against nothing

out at sea

all night long

a blue moon

            two hours lost

            in charcoal, pencil, ink

our first visit back 

to the cinema

it’s 1968, Chicago

*

            light the fire

            burn the day away

another Monday

uncertain 

how to begin

                sunlight you want

                to call miraculous

filling the day from end

to end so there’s no room

for nothing

            plant wallflowers

            a spell for overwintering

slow Sunday afternoon

watching Casablanca

you weep on the sofa

            2.30 pm around the brazier

            Autumn Equinox

a moment knows

something’s almost over

but not what it is

            pale lines of rain

            against the ploughed field

I paint the stone rise

in the kitchen

a colour called Thunder

            listening to Meredith Monk’s book of days

            time stops

stay with the ragged joy

of ordinary living

and dying

*

            your birthday: balancing

            pebbles on a burnt tree

rain all day

the garden rises up

to meet it

            the longest day

            stripped back to nothing

the only yellow flower

on the gorse bush

a yellowhammer

            the here and now

            and the mental there and elsewhere   

the yard white

a sudden shower 

of sky stones

            on top of the Iron Age fort

            we see beyond ourselves

without water in the taps

your mind full of nothing

but water

            distilling time impossible

            I try anyway

good thinking always happens

at the moment of speechlessness

jellyfish swim behind her

            you die 

            you are still here

a few seconds lag

between our chat

connects || separates

*

            the first swallow

            and tears come

storm moon and hailstones                                                               

I warm myself                                                                                    

at your fire

            the rowan’s shadow 

            ticking clockwise

punctuated equilibrium

how earth evolves 

in sudden ruptures

            every day the same                            

            every day different

Spring Equinox:

I am a tilting cup

a tremulous star

            in ceremonial kimonos                                                           

            they look back from the future

do not stand

in a place of danger

trusting in miracles

            our molehills                                                               

            are mountains

my driver knows

hardly any English but says

we need more water

            a dead man’s tattoos –

            fail we may, sail we must

on the windowsill                                                                                           

a bowl                                                                         

of borrowed time    

   

[Quotations from: Jane Hirshfield, Donna Haraway, Siri Hustvedt, Moroccan proverb, Andrew Weatherall.]

May Day Gathering

 

The festival of Beltane marked the time when cattle were moved from winter shelter to summer pastures and the community came together in rituals of protection and blessing.  Over May Day weekend a group of us celebrated by writing renga verses in our own spaces.  I gathered a selection of the verses together to make this special Beltane Renga.  It captures a sense of this uncertain time – with thoughts from Derbyshire to Glasgow, city and countryside – and creates a space to look in and look out.  A monument for remembrance, as well as blessing and protection.

 

On Beltane Street

 

May’s not out yet

so we fill the house

with honesty, forget-me-nots

 

watering the compost

waiting for the bean shoots

 

drawn in windows

chalked on pavements

rainbows for our better angels

 

the curlew’s call follows its flight

sky mapped in sound

 

thought she was away with the fairies

Grandma May

but now I also chat to them

 

stilled streets

where wild creatures roam

 

after the rain

trees groan and stretch

their greening fingers

 

a circle not a line

this deadlinelessness

 

rinse until clear

gently reshape

allow to dry naturally

 

she hits the bottle

it hits her back

 

I miss waves

long to float

to be held by sea

 

wasp sawing last year’s lovage

harvesting timber

 

her children are suspicious

of the new smells

bleach, soap, fear

 

smoke has no discernible edge

it’s all shadow

                                   

let the fern unfurl your grieving 

let the heron still your breathing 

let the selkie swim you deeper 

 

raising glasses on Zoom

all our wrinkles show

 

over-heated plate

(earth-coloured)

broken into two half moons

 

under the blaze of gorse, wild pansies

purple petals, yellow hearts

 

days like this

begin and end

in fullness

 

we walk paths from here

to who knows where

 

 

 

 

 

*

two robins a branch apart

no need for song

proximity language enough

 

it is my heart I hear

growling with longing

 

we walk around an island

built from the acts

of our own containment

 

five hares in a line – lope

leap – whoooa and they’re gone

 

pink side down

magnolia petals

dangle and twist

 

every day now

like three in the afternoon

 

 

 

 

 

*

I drive my herd out

[locked down]

between two fires

 

marsh marigolds crowd the ditch

cups of gaudy gold

 

she holds up her Thursday pan

to the evening sky

flash and clang and shimmer

 

mouse-chewed chocolate

a Post Office apology

 

wands of ash

Venus of the Woods

protect us

 

reflected light ripples

dissolves a branch, a leaping fish

 

fresh mown lawn

lungfuls

of torn chlorophyll

 

ants crawl over the garlic

put down to repel them

 

aching for the day

when this

is a memory

 

rosemary in the blue pot

rubbed between thumb and forefinger

 

at the nature reserve

a police notice asks

Why are you here?

 

down the desire path

through the puzzled wood

 

if you knew Time as well as I do

said the Hatter

you wouldn’t talk about wasting it

 

early morning quiet

kisses the ancient spinney

 

in the gloaming

they raise a glass

tie Beltane ribbons

 

            whir whir wit whir woo

the pigeon insists

 

striking a match

in the darkness of stars

flickering in cupped palms

 

tomorrow’s home-ed

making dandelion honey

 

this Year of the Great Reckoning

unpunctuated by the dash

of vapour trails.

 

 

 

A Distance/Presence Renga

over Beltane weekend

1^st – 3^rd May 2020

 

 

Participants:

Birtley Aris

Jo Aris

Adrian Brewster

Larry Butler

Holly Clay

John Cobb

Martin Eccles

Linda France

Lilly Fylypczyk

Susan Gibb

Malcolm Green

Jackie Hardy

Sharon Higginson

Geoff Jackson

Virginia Kennedy

Liz Kirsopp

Bernadette McAloon

Karen Melvin

Lesley Mountain

Ellen Phethean

Ruth Quinn

Ratnadevi

Alex Reed

Linda Thake

Maria Venditozzi

Mandy Wilkinson

 

Neither Lion nor Lamb

March

 

what light there is

filtered through the fan

of their feathers

 

the spine, pale and articulate,

of a fox or a hare

 

punctuated equilibrium –

how earth evolves

in sudden ruptures

 

the sputnik graphic

alarmingly crimson

 

someone gets there

before me – liberating

the abandoned bicycle

 

in the open field of the day

plovers calling

 

the room full

of winter

it’s never been as warm

 

neat white flowers

of the barren strawberry

 

if a thousand people

look at the moon

there are a thousand moons

 

what I tell the bees

is between me and the bees

 

everyone stockpiling

against worst-case-scenario pain:

paracetamol, ibuprofen, codeine

 

the colour of persimmons

a new charity shop jumper

 

bags packed

last minute change of plan

staying put

 

the swift narrow rowboat

Truant Muse in cursive script

 

half going one way, half another,

trying to give myself away

to inexactitude

 

stay in touch

she says, not touching

 

bringing home snowdrops

a small handful

of lingering hope

 

a woman in a mask comes

to measure my per cubic foot energy

 

wild garlic tart

as much for the soothe of making

as the savour of eating

 

Spring Equinox: I am a tilting cup

a tremulous star

 

warcabinetspeak

lockdown, self-isolation

linguistic distancing

 

never has a daffodil

looked more beautiful

 

the pilgrimage

of these days

becoming the path

 

two long-tailed tits

among the apple buds

 

my son comes home

we dance around each other

nothing is familiar

 

clapping the NHS

under a canopy of stars

 

a hedgehog emerges

from hibernation

leaves its traces

 

our prayer flags unfurl

as the chill wind blows

 

two pine logs and a plank

a new bench

for absent friends

 

in my sleep I steal back

yesterday’s lost hour

 

star of Bethlehem

hiding its pale light

among what the flood washed up

 

 

The first image is a gogotte – a natural rock formation from the Paris Basin, 33 – 28 million years old (Natural History Museum).  The second, ancient and new, frogspawn in our pond.

Writing the Climate

Last week my new post as Climate Writer with New Writing North and Newcastle University was officially announced and I have been very touched by all the warm messages and gestures of encouragement and support I’ve received.  I am often taken by surprise to be reminded of the invisible strands of connection between us when it looks like nothing is happening.  Living in a culture of appearances casts mists over all our eyes.

It seems to me one of the difficulties of tackling Climate Change (both in the world and on the page) arises because here in the UK we can’t properly see it.  Those people badly affected by the floods of recent years have had to shift into survival mode, without the luxury of any distance to consider the influence and implications of Climate Change on their wrecked homes and lost and ruined possessions.  [Clare Shaw’s Flood (Bloodaxe 2018) is a powerful book of poems on the subject of floods in the world and floods in the psyche. See also Brian and Mary Talbot’s fascinating graphic novel Rain (Cape 2019).]  If we can’t see a thing (or hear, touch, smell or taste it), it’s hard to know what we’re faced with and how to respond.  Because we can’t quite pin it down, the words for it elude us and because the words elude us, we can’t quite pin it down.  A vicious circle.

The fact that Climate Change is being ignored by governments capable of introducing new initiatives and renewable systems, that already exist, in order to address our runaway carbon emissions adds to the sense of unreality.  Climate Change can feel like a collective dream, the way Cocteau thought of cinema.  Like a dream, the meaning is hard to interpret – things aren’t what they seem, there are many layers, characters and objects often symbolic rather than actual. There are those who say that everyone in a dream is some aspect of ourselves.  And so it is with Climate Change – we are each (and together) the protagonist of this story, and we are also the antagonist, our own worst enemy.  It’s no good waiting to be rescued for we are our own saviours too.  This hall of mirrors makes the subject even more tricky to write about.  The language itself is not designed to cross the subject-object divide, let alone accommodate the disruption of verb tense to triangulate time and allow past, present and future to co-exist.

These are some of the first principles – the origin myth of Climate Change, if you like – I’ve been trying to get back to in these initial weeks of acclimatisation.  My head a little dizzy with all the reading and thinking and puzzling, I’ve felt a bit like Sisyphus doomed to keep rolling an enormous rock up a hill over and over again when it’s always tumbling back down.  In an effort to create some physical boundaries and foundations for my work, and a sense of progress, I’ve created a dedicated space in my little hut some friends kindly passed on to me a few years ago.  Always declared an academia-free zone and my very own medicine hut, I used it to regather and recharge while I was working on my PhD.  Now it can come into its own to accommodate (literally) my musings on the elusive, unwieldly subject of Climate Change.  As if it always knew this was going to be its purpose in life, its manufacturer’s mark has gained new significance.  I’m hoping my hut will carry the weight of this work so I don’t need to.  Better Atlas than Sisyphus.

Apart from establishing a conducive physical space, I’ve also been experimenting with a virtual container for my process.  Like most people, I have a love-hate relationship with digital platforms and the only social media space I feel remotely comfortable in is Instagram.  I appreciate the focus on visual images and lack of clutter, its capacity to connect and inform.  Since the beginning of the year I have been posting daily images and short texts arising from an awareness of the natural world and climate issues.  The form I am following is an adaptation of the ‘year renga’ I used (in a notebook, privately, never intended for publication) that ended up becoming book of days (Smokestack 2009).  Renga is an old Japanese collaborative form I’ve been working with for the past two decades, alongside others and alone.  I’m not entirely sure where I’m going with this but as a daily practice it keeps the subject at the front of my mind and every day is another door, a chance to refocus and begin again.  Which is perhaps another first principle for tackling Climate Change, living with it and writing about it.

Here are my renga verses for January.  You can see the images on IG @lindafrancebooksandplants (also via my website).  You can also read more about my post on the New Writing North website.

January

Weather forecast –

new * things *

under * the * sun

 

black coal and butterfly wings

both out of their element

 

bearded lichen

knows where time lives

and grows there

 

less knowledge

more attention

 

using my car

as a salt lick, the sheep

make a monograph

 

high water

Leith

 

raindrops on the windowpane –

the lamp stays lit

all day

 

January’s muses

Beauty, Prudence and Folly

 

five hundred years old

the Spanish chestnut tree

still bearing fruit

 

of earthly joy

            thou art my choice

 

keepsake –

something hidden

inside something else

 

clouds and crocodiles

a three-umbrella day

 

before we leave:

peace

to this place

 

crossing the border

windmills! windmills! windmills!

 

white pencil points

of snowdrops

about to write their name

 

the room is full

of all the lost creatures

 

on the windowsill

a bowl

of borrowed time

 

I resort to poetry

            like I resort to tears

 

four of us

not quite on top of the world

but nearly

 

walking into

the wind’s sighs

 

the unknown becomes known

the outcasts come inside

the strange becomes ordinary

 

our molehills

are mountains

 

we need new words

for what we don’t know

honest and kind

 

invisible birds singing

dusksongs in the birches

 

year of the rat

new moon – second chance

at starting over

 

Sunday morning

a tangle of light and dark

 

in the corner of the room

a shopping trolley

a very British rebellion

 

her black cat called Maya

watches my every move

 

a head-scratching sort of day –

out among other people’s voices

to hear my own better

 

my car still proud

to be European

 

one day gone missing –

next month

come find me

 

 

One of the things I want to do with this work is to connect with others and find ways for writers to come together and discover what they might be able to do to help find the words we need to see our way into what this time is asking of us.  So please do chip in here with comments, suggestions and anything at all you think I should be looking at.  The post is only part-time but I’m keen to cover as much ground as possible over the year.

Many thanks.

A yard of sunlight

 

A Winter Solstice Renga

at Fair Hill, Haltwhistle,

on 22^nd December 2019.

 

A yard of sunlight

 

4.19, licked awake

by the dream fox

skulking across the fells

 

midwinter mist

unwraps the river

 

remember the arrow on the map

this could be the place

where old timbers revive a door

 

her shadow sharpens

blurs, doubles

 

new earth being made

from this year’s leaves

the fluff of jumpers

 

Picasso-like bird’s wing –

plaster flying

 

outside the December dusk

firelight inside

I warm my hands

 

how many footfalls

on these bare boards?

 

Aesica was built by the legions

left dry

aqueduct unconnected

 

impossible now

to not have you

 

presently the character

of his adoration

became clear

 

we are eight

circling the red box

 

if only words

were only air

rising

 

a yard of sunlight

at the north end of the garden

 

the little tree

sings

in the rusty bucket

 

stamped on thin ice

a thousand fragments of starlight

 

sonata gathered in

to one dense sound

above the rooftops

 

bulbs turn

from waiting to watching

 

empty fields

left to the rooks

snow is coming

 

tomorrow is the shape

of a leaf.

 

 

Participants:

Birtley Aris

Jo Aris

Matilda Bevan

Linda France

Sharon Higginson

Liz Kirsopp

Christine Taylor

Clara May Warden

 

Light Sculptures by Michael Seal/Lumicube

 

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

 

 

At Allen Banks

I’m spending a lot of time at Allen Banks these days – stepping out of the garden into the wild.  It’s the site for my current PhD research at Newcastle University and I’m looking at its history as well as its ecology towards writing a book-length sequence of poems.

As part of my endeavour to consider it as a collective site, it seemed natural to invite a group of folk to participate in a walking renga at the end of the summer, on the brink of my starting my second year of study.  We walked on the East side of the river, up through Moralee Woods to the tarn, stopping along the way to write and share our verses.

Here is the renga we made together:

The Landscape, Ourselves

 

Today’s truth –

the seventh month is our ninth

white river brown

 

a startled heron

wingbeat of silence

 

what is that sumptuous smell?

she only knows it

as ‘country’

 

a choice is made

to keep to the middle way

 

uphill

tripping on roots

my breathing quickens

 

through the ghost of a window

we gaze over the valley

 

mirror tarnished

by pondweed

waterlily

 

layer upon layer

memories settle

 

my companions are painting light

collecting earth

gathering pollen

 

by the water

a stack of wooden bones

 

and so we lean

into the landscape

ourselves

 

picture the moonlight

shadowing these branches

 

in a wild grove

between two fields

with all that’s unspoken

 

Allen

muttering, meandering.

 

A 14-verse Renga at Allen Banks,

Morralee Wood,

on 6^th September 2017.

 

Participants:

Jo Aris

Matilda Bevan

Holly Clay

Martin Eccles

Linda France

Malcolm Green

Sharon Higginson

Alex Reed

Eileen Ridley

Christine Taylor

 

Sound artist and fellow PhD student, Martin Eccles recorded the day and you can read his own renga here.  As well as writing our collaborative version, this time I encouraged everyone to keep all their verses and make their own individual renga, imagining them all as parallel shadows of our shared experience.

Borderlands Renga

What the land says

*

Morning sun

warms crumbled earth

relief from frost heave

 

I hold it in my hands

it holds me

 

hills made overground

by velvet tunnellers

dark soil workers

 

home to the unseen

and the spectacular

 

a rusty horse-shoe, half-buried

 

O larch, cone

and whisker of you

nubs of dusted red

 

ash trees do it for me

sometimes, especially

 

fluid hardness of wood

 

leaning into, leaning on

a steady place to start

bones and barks both bend

 

hollowed, clothed

folding rock and living humus

 

the burn’s law carves a groove

divides a field

opens up earth’s skin

 

 

*

sunlit current between the banks

silent cross-currents within me

 

aching for the river’s touch

to be closer

to my open hand

 

telegraph pole floating down in the flood

 

the stream tumbling into my right ear

drifting from my left

 

glistening water

passes under the high bridge

carries thoughts downstream

 

shadow of a fish

playing with light

 

steepness

a water world

wagtail

 

too thirsty to write a verse

above the river, I drink

 

above is below, flickering

skittish dipper flashes

stone to stone

 

today’s green umbrella

sheltering last week’s rain

 

earth route, sea bound

 

the water continues

sure in its course

holding to uncertainty

 

 

 

*

around the shadow of my hat

grass glows

 

in an auditorium of green fire

burning off

winter’s residue

 

furious and ferocious me

I lie down and rest

 

bliss – a line

scorched between

need and no-need

 

sun-grown leaf, grain, fruit

 

this stone below me, slow

this light on my face

 

a constellation of solar systems

scattered over

the dandelion meadow

 

red absorbed

sleepy cushion after lunch

 

furnace of microbial life

 

flowers

photosynthetic factories

forging the sward

 

 

*

feathers in my pocket

song in the air

 

crows – two in the uplift

corks on an unseen river

your wings, my home

 

take me up, thermals

so that I may see

 

the nothingness of being

that lives by breath

 

ripple in the pool, rustle in the tree

 

tickling my cheekbones

songs of blackcap, chiff chaff, jackdaw

 

drowsy afternoon

a chance to listen to air

sifting memories

 

my mother’s bloodroot

 

a wave of tiny combustions

the wave arranged in patterns, rhythm

 

cow-breath gorse-breath

blowing the flute

of the secret valley

 

 

 

*

where the skylark is –

even to the ten thousand galaxies

 

this pen settled in the saddle

of thumb and forefinger

widening to describe all this

 

space curves

there is a tree, a wall, a house

 

a network of human habitation

 

soft sow shape of Cheviot

stretches out asleep

over all those centuries

 

distant granite whaleback

 

in the distance

between thoughts – a space to fade to

 

sky full of bird paths

each flown invisibly

opened and closed

 

bear’s garlic, shepherd’s purse,

Persian speedwell

 

blue harvest

 

slip through

follow the fold of sky

return

 

 

 

*

the me that has no thoughts

the other quietly watching

 

a way to be back

along the boughs

a root home

 

with all the twists and turns

still there is the green

 

can we meet the tree?

sometimes I sense it

and so must she

 

tell me what I am

and through me sing

 

a group reflects

a hawthorn dances

I listen

 

preoccupied by the thinking

we forget the knowing

 

delusions like crows on a fence

 

arthritic old thorn

teaches silence

to sapling ash, oak, gean

 

ten thousand green eyes

turned skywards

 

what a day of embrace!

tree of heart’s desire

hold our grief, our trust, our uncertainty

 

alive to this place

 

tangled in and out of shadow

risk yes risk joy.

 

 

A walking renga

from Borderlands 3 at Burnlaw,

Whitfield, Northumberland,

on 23^rd April, 2017.

 

Participants:

Jo Aris, Melanie Ashby, Michael Van Beinum, Matilda Bevan, Neil Diment, John Fanshawe, Jane Field, Linda France, Kate Foster, Malcolm Green, Sharon Higginson, Geoff Jackson, Martha Jackson, Georgiana Keable, Virginia Kennedy, Linda Kent, Martin Lee Muller, Karen Melvin, Tim Rubidge, Geoff Sample, Torgeir Vassvik, Gary Villers-Stuart, Rosie Villiers-Stuart, Nigel Wild, Richard Young.

 

Borderlands 3 was a gathering of Northern Networks for Nature.  On Saturday we were mostly indoors, listening to excellent speakers, sharing thoughts (and fantastic food – thanks Martha!) and watching and listening to a ‘salmon fairytale’ from Norway.  On Sunday we went outside and walked down the valley as far as Bridge Eal, stopping along the way to consider the elements and write renga verses.  This renga is the fruit of that walk in that place on that day with those people.

 

 

Celebrating Capability Brown

John Cobb as Capability Brown in ‘The Eye Catcher’ at Kirkharle Courtyard

 

Making the Lake

 

This far north

dips and hills

unpredictable as summer

 

outside the tent

tall grass waves westwards

 

making the lake

a long lead time

different machinery

 

capability shifts landscape

in the mind

 

chittering swallows

twist in flight

white-blue-white

 

on the ridge of his horizon

a skeleton tree

 

pegs show contour

banks woodbound

piles driven level

 

bring me a basket of bread

for the road to Cambo

 

moon in his eyes

will he be hunter

gardener or poet?

 

wheelbarrow stands in sunlight

casting a dark green shadow

 

these rattling meadows

our ancestors

our hope

 

a spider runs between cracks

in the dried earth

 

for this place, this day

a necklace of beads

of heat, mud, honey

 

where is the boundary to be drawn –

planned and unplanned?

 

begin with an outline

a structure, a framework

anchor it then overlay

 

Kirkharle – eight hours from Newcastle

on dirt roads

 

harsh edge of roofs

gives way to

serrated larch against the sky

 

the price of a line of beauty –

twanging muscles, calloused hands

 

looking north, new energy

beyond the oil route

wind turbines, wood

 

when the wheel stops

it starts all over again.

 

 

A renga in celebration of Capability Brown

on 17^th August 2016

at Kirkharle, his birthplace three hundred years ago.

  

Participants:

 

Birtley Aris

Jo Aris

Michelle Caulkett

Linda France

Patricia Gillespie

Rosie Hudson

Lesley Mountain

Diana Smith

Tony Smith

Clara May Warden

Liz Wilkinson

Margaret Williams