Strident in centre field,
Startled a long run it makes
Limbs long and lean
Across the evening field it sprints, A back-lit golden dart;
Partially shielded above the
The boundary ditch
To watch and listen,
Then in another direction,
Over splash of green
Apollo’s arrow spears the sun.
To Look Up
Under the mighty thundercloud warm air is drawn
Yet the wind whips simultaneously From the rising wall of slate
Steep and anviled, ominous is the beast
And precise as the shutter closed,
A grinding rumble from the depths of the grey was sounded
Like a giant awakening;
And so drawn am I to
Beauty seen in the striking skies;
Shielding ugliness at what is left behind
Biblical in scene
Of flood or gale
When the giant takes its leave.
Day after day
Storm after storm
To look up we glimpse heaven’s beauty manifest
Preferable to downward cast.
Drawn to a Black and White World
Only a thin blue line
A hint of haze
As fog puckers its surface;
Smokescreen of view,
Visceral changes manifest as
Blurred shapes deep within a
Cloud- born haze form
Lines without ends,
Fields, their boundaries lost in
Vanishing spectral light-
Of
A chain of promises broken;
Drawn in are we or out
Into a black and white world?
Gardening through Climate Change
So will I show you the Spring:
With the warmth of the sun
Calendar prediction
Fast growth of green shoots
Spearing the soil
Arrow flight to the light.
So will I show you:
Protected with wool
Cloched and tressed up
Planted
To beat onslaught-
A gruelling antidote to
A month of drought
Monsoon in proportion;
Leaching of
Mulched beds
To the bottom of the hill
A stream of minerals
A hand given from river to sea.
Stripped is the soil
The fangs of the wind to evil intent
Inexorable to growth
Whipped to submission.
So will I explain the gardener in me :
DNA defined Through generations wired;
Of country estate to
Allotment plot
Stories of bounty
Or thriving on nothing;
Plantswomen
Not educated but practised
Endless summers of sun
And snows in winter.
Now qualifications are mine and technology too
Yet the weather unfathomable
To the elements
I claw at a loss.
On the Western Sky
Cloak of cloud
Morphs into a storm dementor
Cauliflowered top and rising fast
Thunderously blackened
Drawn battle of the gods
Ominously stirred
Fringed edges sweep the skyline
Swallowing the view
In its fury
Into a black and white world.
Hare 2
Bold in the lane
Totally still
A statuesque form
Aligned to a bronze
Cast by the evening sun
Exhibit 2
Then...
Alerted
It’s ears twist and are raised
Like a muntjac from behind
So raised are the hind legs
Gear changed and foot down
Shower gravel as they spring
Burning rubber on a sixpence
Through the gateway and gone.
Stormy Seas
The sea churns
With spun sugar-whipped foaming energy
Fixing salt spray on the lips;
The gull on the fingers of the wind
Is held in suspension
As the waves roll and retreat
Like the Tuppenny slot machine of the arcade,
Relentlessly mechanical in motion: in and out
Drawing the sand from the bed of the sea
In a serge of reddish soup
Hewn from Jurassic cliffs:
Remorseless the anger is until
The lion lies down with the lamb.
Guinea Fowl
They arrived last evening,
Nonchalantly walking along the verge,
Bobbing red heads held high
Owning the road,
So passers by stopped and asked if they were ours-
A pair with
Quirky gait
And funny call (not the passers by)
Of ‘Chi Chi Chi,’
And ‘Come back here;’
I’ve never cared to look at
guinea fowl before-
They made me smile,
More suited to wide African Savannah plain not tarmac road,
And Devon rain,
Large and strident;
So different from my domestic fowl
They made no move to go
Except to be shooed away from
A passing car;
Later I went out to see-
Soft was their chatter
Back again,
High up in our trees;
Independent they seemed,
Confident these
Uninvited guests;
Strangely I don’t think they
Are suited to stay-
Perhaps they’ve moved on by now.
Rain 2
Again the wind roars
The rain lashes
Across in straight lines
The torment comes
In the grey light of dawn
A driven energy
A pounding invasion
Quietened are the birds
Taking refuge in the hedge
Their song
Replaced by the strengthened gusts
Gone is the gentleness of evening
The rain driving in an angled veil
Intensifies in rhythm of a snare drum on the roof
The mist that envelops
Tumbling down the hill into oblivion.
Gentle Rain
Steady and deliberate drops fall
Patterning the surface of the soil
In stippled pattern
Releasing
The intoxicating sweet smell of fungal spores
Evocative of rare still nights
The air hangs
The sound mesmerising
Intensifying
The garden in secrecy awaits
Refreshment
Without torment
Of wind and storm.
Tonight the soil will be replenished
The plants nourished
Nurtured with care.
Ruth Partridge 