2022

Mountains

When the mountains call to you

You have no choice but to go

They are old

Old gods

Old as the Earth

What do they want?

To be worshipped?

To be remembered?

Maybe they want to remind you there's something bigger than you

Like the way the stars

Remind you that you are small

And your life

Insignificant

In the grandest of schemes

Maybe the mountains want nothing but to be remembered

Their bodies

Aching from lying

Down on this land

Maybe they want nothing at all

For it does not have to make sense for it to be real

And I wish

I wish I could tell you of all the mountains we have forgot

Body of water

I love the way the river changes

Creating things that weren’t there before

Shaping shifting moulding

Moving banks

Giving taking

Playing

Nothing is static

Ever evolving

River

Wild water

You can only ever encourage water

Make suggestions

As to their direction

Nothing I want more than to become the water

Older than the sun and the moon

And I remember this time

I’m here in a body

Flesh incarnate

Body of water

The Right to Flow

Here I declare this Body of Water has The Right to Flow

has the right to exist as a river should

has the right to be sustained by streams and by rain

has the right to inhabit the land on which they move

I do not feel I need to tell you the river is alive.

I do not need to tell you the river is older than all of us.

I do not need to remind you that this river was touched by the hands and feet of your ancestors.

The river might have changed, might have flowed since then,

the same water which runs through your body, ran through theirs

runs through the river

you are the river

and this river is alive.

body

listening to my body

made of this land

soil on my toes

leaves on my hand

water in my body

in water I stand

residing inside me

body gifted from the land

within my body I hold

all those who came before

to listen is to learn

to body and to Earth

my body holds the trees,

ancient memory

held in stone

body remembers all these things

body remembers home

body is a portal

to times ancient and passed

in these bones I carry

memories of the past

body tells me many things

body keeps me safe

from this body I listen

to things we thought were lost

the soil is sacred

the soil is sacred

this soil is sacred

the soil is the gift we have been left by thousands of years of life and decomposition

the bodies of everyone who has lived and has loved will become soil

every tree is destined to return to the soil in which it’s roots grow deeply

this soil

is gifted to us

sacred soil

on which we stand

the origins of life.

the origins of our life

we grow from this soil

Future Forest

Even Ash trees grow in the future forest

Blackbirds sing and Nightjars call and the river runs clearest of all

Quartz shines at the bottom of the stream

white glow white glow

I am alive only so

That I live in the leaves of the future forest

Magic sunlight pools catch beams

In the future forest 🌳

Buzzards

A buzzard just flew over my head and announced themselves to me

Mewwww

Mewwwww

Then rises in gentle speckled circles

To join 5 friends

High in the air above me

This body

I do not have to carry

the threat of nuclear war

in my body

I can feel safe within this being

made of Earth and dust and rock and bone

I do not have to carry the anger

and hostility of men within me.

This body is a place of peace,

of ease. A gentle ripening of

the future.

Wild Water

Have you ever felt

the call of the wild

water?

Thick and full and rushing

full of rain

where the clay grows

red and green at the

edges

where you must tell

the bramble to

release you

ever shared your

own water with the

wild water? so they

can know you and

welcome you home.

My love

This Valentine’s

Day I proclaimed

my love to the

Oak Tree

Leaned my whole body

against their bark and

let them hold me

who have you let

hold you?

Meadow Pipet

In my haste

to run

back home

to write

this poem

I startled

and saw

the soft

belly and

wings and

tail of

a

Meadow

Pipit

Hollow Tree

Have you ever felt

the calm of lying

inside a hollow tree?

No place on Earth as

quiet and warm and safe

A womb anchored

into the soil and reaching

to the heavens.

What grows there?

A tiny seedling,

a bramble reaching up out of the

gaps in the bark, where the rain

drips in. An ash

seedling grows.

Ease

I want to flow with the ease of water

Around the things man has sculpted for water to flow

Gentle resilience

Around bricks and concrete

In favour of roots and stones

May you find ease like water

Through the Earth

Into trees, down mountains and back again

May you flow, may you flow flow

Roots

roots

twisted

and old

hold

memory

like

the soil

Soil

gifted from the roots

blessed round and smooth

fallen, twisted, ripped

natural birth, decay, death

linear unfolds

soil holds

memories

places hold

lives

lived,

not forgotten

held in the soil

held in the rocks

stones balance memory

and present with future

water kisses edges,

leaves new tides,

what comes

what goes

held in the soil

memory flows

Wild waves

I felt

the

Wild waves

of

the

Dark

Stormy

Night

within

me

Redwing

Yesterday I saw a Redwing and then a whole flock of them.

There is something about the trees

which reminds me

which draws me away and back to my

body at the same time

that doesn’t care and yet deeply cares

about me

the undying risk/ the call of the wild

damp leaves thinning to soil

timeless timeless timeless

Here you exist amongst ancestors

Those who came before &

those who have yet to live,

side by side

Lines like time are never straight

deep grooves of the past are here with me now

deep roots carry me forward

a promise of home

in the land

scattered here are memories unmade

by me

residue, left

a balance reminding me of life

which always continues

endless timeless

drenched in place

left in space

(behind you)

the wild is here / there / home

to those who need it.

who’s feet can tred don pavement

no more

it will not seek but you can

find it

this longing which draws me

home back again

back to my bones

there is a land

where time forgot.

it ripples at the edge but

that is all / draws no waves

a splash in the giant ocean of this space

lost land

forgot/ never knew

didn’t care

walk on by it is your right

carry on past the space you never once

knew

here I live deep inside

myself

each tree a memory of something

I never lived

This space holds dreams like

mountains do

inside the bark/skin

more than we know

a place where form exists but

for a purpose

saved here in distant time &

space

mercy murder

last man standing

here the wild grew unscathed.

Live in harmony with

what I know.

But how can I with what I don’t?

To know the wild is to know a part of you

that even a lover or a mother

won’t

deep inside time (lost inside time)

the world changes & doesn’t know

the left space is all that matters

now. a place to return when it calls

you home.

The Feminine

The Feminine is a movement

just for the pleasure of it

She is a long exhale of breath

to calm my nervous system

She is the slow,

circular movement

appreciation

of my soft curves

of my body

echoed in the rolling

hills & valleys carved

by rivers & by glaciers

she's the shape of air

port hangars disguised

into the soft hillside

the dance of appreciation

before I get in the shower

on a slow saturday

she's the flow of the river

from the mountain

tops to the sea

a movement not of

purpose but of experience

A river experiencing

being a river

slow, meandering, creating

destroying,

no space she cannot explore

She's the mist on the

mirror & on the

river, seen from the

window on this still

winter's day

showing me exactly

where the Severn flows

where she goes, and

for nothing else.

She's the swift speed

of the droplets on

the shower glass

keen excitement

to meet each other &

to become the river

She's the softness of

my skin, reflecting

diffused soft light

on my hairs, my toes

playing with my

achilles tendon,

tenderly

she's this poem, falling

into my mind whilst

in the shower, unable

to write her down.

Unable to contain her

down the plug hole

she told me what I

must do so I stopped

trying to write &

experienced my self

in my body & only

then did she return

not quite the same but

in essence.

Do not be fooled,

because although

she is the blood

that runs down between

my legs & the soft

curve of my hip &

the fat on my tummy

& my soft chest,

she is in every

body, you may only

find her in experience

without direction

with wonder & curiousity

& softness & care &

movement without purpose

& expression without

thought & tears of

joy & sadness