What with flu, leading the writing retreat on Iona, driving back nearly 700 miles in one hit and then early the next day off again to my sister's wedding (violins yet?) and then straight into the piled-up and toppling piles of work undone (OK two violins would be fine here, thank you), the fact that I've been posting a weekly poem each time from a different contributor to our new Two Rivers anthology Confluence completely slipped from my mental grasp.
So here belatedly is a poem by Bridget Thomasin. There's no one I know who's like Bridget. There's a quality to her that reminds me of Dartmoor itself: timeless and unchanging, and like one of our granite standing stones there's something about her that marks moor-time in its uprightness. Bridget lives very simply, tucked into a remote corner of the moor. Her poetry reflects this quality of uncluttered lack of pretentiousness; as does her subtle and beautiful artwork.
No Through Road
Taking time
to go beyond
the end of the no through road
shoes whitening with dust and pollen
a scrambling of tumbled walls
dry leats and beech trees
crickets and clover filling
a grey day with summer.
Following the undefined
over white fields of wind
each step the crossing of a boundary.
Taking time to explore
the beguiling network
of small journeys
little fields of celandine and stitchwort
and in the hawthorn’s shadow.
Taking time
to go beyond
the end of the no through road
shoes whitening with dust and pollen
a scrambling of tumbled walls
dry leats and beech trees
crickets and clover filling
a grey day with summer.
Following the undefined
over white fields of wind
each step the crossing of a boundary.
Taking time to explore
the beguiling network
of small journeys
little fields of celandine and stitchwort
and in the hawthorn’s shadow.
Taking time to touch
the edge of everything.
No comments:
Post a Comment