A Petrol sky etched with pinkish hue; The muffled cockerel cry; A hazy outline of moorland ridge; The first calls of a thrush imbue. Recumbent cows with their faces alight; Shards from the eastern sun; A lone calf wanders, stirring the herd; Sharp cry of a blackbird in flight. Conspicuous by its reddish form, A deer runs back and forth. Green juxtaposed against the golden grass The hedge-lined fields adorn. A gifted morning, a savoured treat So often going unseen; A hidden world- a rhythmic pattern; Apposed lives chancing to meet. Ruth Partridge
Small Voice
While darkness shrouds
Thoughts are stirred
Drifting in the subconscious
Across the cerebral cortex
Of fractured sleep;
Awakened by silence
It sates the soul;
The world is stilled:
It wears grey like a cloak.
How vast it seems
When all is quiet;
My voice,so small
Within it.
And as I write,
A haunting sound
Mirrors my human’s
Outward breath;
A tawny owl
Calls
As the sky turns
To petrol blue
A blackbird cries
And then it stops-
Mid sentence
Like a punctuation mark.
Again the world is stilled
How privileged am I
To hear it?
When all is quiet
My voice so small
Within it.
Old Tool… New Tool
The feel of old wood
Rounded in my hand
The weighted balance
Of an ancient tool
From one hand long gone
Placed into mine
A secret story keeper
Holds its story
For now
it’s mine .
£14 well spent at Ashridge Court Wood Fair. I’m a bit obsessive about my tool collection- all are in use, but I wash , dry and oil them after use.
There is something innately satisfying about using old hand tools in the garden. The fact that as I use them I’m in touch with a far bigger story.
Over 800 Years
Uneven and hard
The path to our church
Difficult to navigate
Tricky when wet
But have you considered the value it holds?
For these stones hold the truths of the stories of old.
The path to the church built on the rock
Over those years countless people have trod
Rich and poor
Young and old
Skilled labourers and farmers
Even those seeking gold!
From quarrymen to service
Even scientists were told
All drawn from the land
And now part of God’s plan.
This is our church
800 years old
Held in these walls a story enfolds
Pilgrims through centuries drawn through the ages
We come together to write the new pages
Held in faith by God above
Let’s celebrate His faithfulness and infinite love.
Traditions may have changed
The church started small
Yet grew through the ages to accommodate all
Through monarchs and battles
Peacetime and strife
It has stood as a focus of our village life
Bringing people together as we gather today
Together in faith to love and to pray.
This is our church
800 years young
Held in these walls your story begun
Pilgrims through centuries drawn through the ages
We’ll come together to write the new pages
Held in faith by God above
Let’s celebrate His goodness and infinite love.
It was a real privilege to have been asked to read this at the centenary service and again at the concert of the Exeter Philharmonic Choir, Pilgrims’ Chorus .
And my picture made into cards and tea towels ! A crazy month – Diptford Village open Gardens , the Bishop of Exeter’s Visit and concert .
Lost
Well oiled
I can almost smell the linseed;
I can almost feel it-
The weight of rounded well- worn wood
Moulded to my hand…
The grip of her hand-
Her hand in mine.
The stories it carries,
One generation to another,
Or do I say carried?
I look and look
Deeper in the ground I go;
We come from the ground-
we return to the ground;
It’s there somewhere
Just out of sight,
Just as she is
It’s lost so I’m lost
Without it.
Two weeks I’ve searched for this little fork. All my tools hang well- oiled.I always put them back or put them in the greenhouse, but perhaps that day I did one more job. This fork is special as it is one of a collection of my mother’s tools.
I gardened that day at my friend’s, counted my tools back into the car as I finished, just as I always do each week. I took the trug of tools back to the greenhouse. I was out early the next morning planting out sweet peas and used the trowel . I thought the fork was beside it – when I went for the fork, it was not there . And so two weeks of searching the border, all of which had been recently mulched . Alas it’s not turned up.I can’t blame anyone – it’s so frustrating!
When Morning Comes Slowly
A dog barks
Before true light;
A greyish blue of nothing;
A peppering of rain on the glass;
The soughing wind
And familiar rattling of the slates
Signals of the day ahead.
A fragile beauty in the a single note of
Birdsong…
Muffled but true.
But no answer given.
Battleship grey
Of micaceous haematite,
The sky’s hue lightens
Through the mist
The birds stay silent
The wind is stilled
The drizzle has no sound
The world is waiting
The morning is slow to come
And so we wander through winter.
Night Manager
The outline of the giant’s back
Outlines the
Southern moor
The first charcoal line of
Landscape drawn
Separation of land and sky;
Feint is the contrast;
Though a glow,flanks the far western edge
Illumination
From a sleeping suburban sprawl
Seen only on the darkest of nights.
Defining so many shades of grey
That draws the eye.
The stillness has depth
And is rare upon our ridge,
Affording privilege at this hour
To be
With
Solitude and perception
Tracing each contour etched across the uplands;
A tiny pinprick of light marks a moorland farm
No lights above, though occasionally there are
Walkers who seek out the beacon
For its grandeur and solitude
Tonight it’s in solemnity
Only
A nighttime freight train
Rumbles round the contour
Its sound amplified when all else is stilled
Like the breath of the giant itself.
To observe is to be;
To be is contentment…
To be with…
The night manager.
Whippet Wisdom
breathing the air
immersed in sight and sound
a good day
Winter’s Vice
In silent stance the ice holds still,
Branches stilled;
Spiked shards fringe each bough
in pearlescent white;
Stiff snow cloaks mounds of earth,
Each bearing tiny crested peaks
and troughs defined by rivulets of soil;
There’s a crunch beneath one’s feet:
A footprint left,
Of others too;
Angular crossings over the land-
Journeys made visible
For all to see;
A scent pervades in the the stillness of air;
Drawing everything to winter’s vice.
Wolf Moon
I think I can almost hear the wolf’s haunting cry
Aside the baleful cows’ lament
From the shaft of light
On the old barn roof.
The break of dawn aglow
Lights the moorland ridge
A soft yellow shimmers on the crest
And yet I do not see;
The sky a shimmering teal
A tease of fantasy or tale.
I lie and watch the dawn unfold
With twisted narrative
To imagination drawn.
Ode to the Blackbird
A truer sound there’s none
Than the blackbird’s call
Cutting through the still air
Of dawn.
So pleased to see our migrant bird
Appear
We’ve missed the familiar
Black gloved thrush
A few miles ago
As south in search of food they fly.
Who might our visitor be?
He does not say,
Save that I hope
He’s a Swede or even Finn
Drawn from the cold north winds
To our South Western stream.
Reassurance to know
Despite the mildness of our climate change
The continuity is present
In this quintessential bird.
Ruth Partridge 