POEMS | ||||
Separation
(from
The Examined Life)
It’s
like a Sunday outing to the Downs –
a
batsman strolling out on Shamley Green
as if
he thinks the summer has no end;
but
then the road begins to twist like a gut
and the
last bend flips us into autumn –
across
a ridge the school stretches the sunset
like
the Thin Red Line at Balaclava.
We
drive in silence through the iron gates
and
park, get out, as calm as undertakers.
I can’t
believe the journey’s at an end
but
just starting. A bell rings like fate.
We
stand, talk like friends of friends
then
Dad recites the pep talk he’s rehearsed;
my ears
can hardly bear each kindly phrase,
my eyes
are turning to my bedroom posters,
and I
wonder what my mum is doing now –
shelling peas while watching Songs of Praise?
I get a
hug from Dad and watch him go;
he
drives off with a grin that’s not his own
and
takes my childhood home.
The Master with the Sports Car
(from
The Examined Life)
A
swallow left behind still lit with summer
he
nested in our wintry school
and
warmed us with his tales of Rive Gauche glamour,
Sorbonne in ’68, Truffaut, Sartre;
his
sideburns, Chelsea Boots and Romeo curls
curdled
the smiles of all the war-time masters –
curriculum could never clip his wings
and we
were glad he didn’t stay for long
afraid
he’d lose the scent of foreign things
and
turn into … a teacher after all.
Better
to picture him in Kentish lanes
roof
down, low slung, speeding to the Channel,
to see
his sunglassed eyes and mirrored glance
at
poplars streaming back through wine-dark France. ![]()
Senior Dormitory: Monday Morning
(from
The Examined Life)
is
crouching down and whispering in my ear
suspiciously benign: ‘You awake, James?
You’ll
never guess – I’ve got you out of Latin,
I’ve
settled it with Neggers, you’re in the clear.’
He
knows how much I’m dying to believe him;
I dread
that class and now he’s seized his chance:
‘Relax,
I’ll run your bath and get hot towels
…’
I close
my eyes. I’m gone. And he’s relentless:
‘But
first I’ll bring the croissants, café au lait,
and
then perhaps a fat hand-rolled Gauloise?’
I dream
of sky-blue France, of St. Tropez
and
float in heaven … till I hear the bell
and
Jonesy’s chuckle fading into hell.
Nostos
(from
the Oratory of Light, after the Irish)
Lord,
in dream I cross
The
vast grey ocean
Rolling
through waves and troughs
To
sweetest Ireland.
And as
my boat arrives
The
seagulls scream
Their
welcome in the skies,
Rejoicing that I’m home.
Gliding
on Lough Foyle
With
swans to serenade me
At last
I find my soul
On
Mount Binevenagh.
By the
abbey of Durrow
The
elms are whispering …
And in
the startle of a flurry
A
blackbird sings.
At dawn
in Ross Grencha
I hear
the stags; and cuckoos
At the
tremble of summer
Blow
echoes through the woods.
The Journey East
(Winter
2010)
The car
revving up, the three of us
wiping
mist away to find a whiter world.
Black-ice to Clonakilty –
cortege
of cars behind a spectral hearse.
Strings
of lights in Bandon, sapphire-cold,
and the
stars are moving through the river.
On
Cork’s Victorian viaduct, a train made of snow.
We
steam below the River Lee.
Cork
city crusts behind us;
three
swans on Slatty Water; feathery ice.
The
sun’s last x-ray radiates the trees.
Lights
turn red in Castlemartyr.
Diesel-slush road. Across the Blackwater
Waterford has drifted white.
Inching
mile by mile – through Iceland? Greenland?
Wexford, another country.
Dungarvan’s glittery square:
each
shop an advent calendar window.
Beyond
the Suir bridge the dark returns …
but
angels are alighting on New Ross.
Rosslare night; chalet on a ghostly estate.
Sound
of wind in chimney.
Dawn
ferry, sudden vibrations –
propellers churn the sea to snow.
The
swell-swing up and down and up –
O let
the voyage finish now, and grant us solid earth.
From
Pembroke Wales unfolds in white;
a
postbox in a wall, red as a berry.
Below
the Severn bridge –
water
turned to bone!
The
Somerset Levels, crisp and even;
the
motorway accelerates the dark.
The
night re-icing the Yeovil road –
not
now, not now we’re nearly there.
Cattistock lumped with snow;
wood
incense, curtains edged with gold.
A house
on Duck Street:
an
outdoor light – a star that’s stopped overhead. ![]()
Angels and Harvesters
(from
Angels and Harvesters)
As
thoughts arrive
From
god knows where,
Or sun
breaks through
A
fraying cloud
Emboldening a patch
Of
trees, or grass,
They
just appeared
From
nowhere
Among
the harvesters
The
field a world
Of
cutting, gathering,
Cutting, gathering.
Their
outlines sometimes
Flickering brighter,
They
walked between
The
bending figures
Curious
Pausing
to watch,
Like
ancestors
Almost
remembering
The
world they’d left,
Or
foreigners
Amused
to see
The
same things done.
They
moved around
Unseen
by all –
Unless
one glimpsed,
Perhaps, light thicken,
A
glassy movement,
As air
can wobble
On
summer days.
And
then they went
Walked
into nothing
Just
left the world
Without
ceremony
Unless
it was
The
swish of scythes
The
swish of scythes
![]()
The Monastic Star-timetable
‘On the
holy night of Christmas
When
you see the Dragon above the dormitory
And
Orion poised above the chapel roof
Prepare
yourself to sound the bell.’
Darkness freezes round me in the cloister.
The
vellum words and stars inflict their patterns
Whispering like the ceaseless prayers we send to God.
No one
must lie asleep who must protect the world.
‘On the
festival of Saint Germanus
Look
for the jewel of the Archer’s arrow
Hanging
above the middle of the tower:
That is
when to start the night-time hymns.’
The
stars are our seasons, the keys of our prison:
Winter
snowfall, glittery scatterings of spring rain
The
globes of poppies in the harvest fields
The
dying meteors of copper beech, oak and elder.
‘On the
Lord’s circumcision
When
the bright star in the knee of Artophilax
Is
level with the corner of the dormitory
It is
time to bring the taper to the lamps.’
The
thrill of live flame! A writhing spirit,
The
chapel like a soul skinned with gold,
This is
the light I seek beyond the constellations;
O lux
aeterna, burn off my crusted life!
‘On the
feast of our beloved Saint Agnes
When
you see the Virgin’s spears rising clear
Above
the space between the sixth and seventh windows
Make
ready for the sacred office.’
I dread
nights of fog, mist, vapours, cloud
The
clinging absence, the separation from God.
Lord,
how long before a star expands inside me
Flooding my soul and flesh with gracious light?
‘On the
feast day of Saint Clement
Orion
will rise above the end of the refectory –
But
wait until you see the sword and scrabbard
Before
you wake the brethren.’
So many
nights I’ve waited for eternity
Listening for music, looking for meaning,
But all
I’ve felt is the dark between the stars,
My
heart, beating like a bell, the phrases of mortality.
Cranborne Woods
(17
May, 1994)
For my
mother
We
stopped the car, ducked below the fence
Felt
time unravelling in a revelation
The
seconds fall and scatter into thousands
Of tiny
saints, a reborn multitude
Flowing
past the trees, through pools of sun,
Each
earthly form a spirit flame, pure blue.
They
watched us drift among them, large as gods,
As if
we’d come as part of their parousia
To stay
with them forever in these woods.
As time
grew darker we slipped away like ghosts
And
slowly drove...towards your death next May
When
once again I saw the risen host
Could
watch you walking weightlessly among The welcomers, the gently swaying throng.
Corn Circle
(from
‘The Frame of Furnace Light’, in The Monk’s Dream)
For my
father
It was
the third day after he was dead
His
body yet to be consigned to fire
We were
marooned in limbo, as becalmed
As the
endless days of summer rolling by
Turning
to ash the surface soils of Wiltshire
And
shrinking the chalk streams of our valley.
That
evening we stood on Pepperbox Hill
Gazing
at fields embalmed in golden heat
And
there, as if cut from the corn, a circle.
We
walked down and picked our way through rows
Towards
the solar disc burning in the wheat
And
crossed the threshold of the temenos
Entering the benediction of the stasis
The
heart of the sun, whirling, motionless.
![]()
A Vision of Comets
(from
A Vision of Comets)
The
flight was delayed.
Outside, the night sky was clear
And the
land that had received the sun all day
Now
slept in silence.
It
could have been a Greek island
Or the
new land of America.
He was
returning home, for good, or for bad,
And the
welter of accumulated memories
And
friendships loomed up from the pit
Of his
stomach in sudden queasy waves.
Time
ticked on and passengers sat in rows
Under
the flickerings of neon
Slowly
numbing themselves to the worry
Of
wondering when the flight would flash up.
Eventually, sunk in the midst of
Painful
feelings of regret and loss
A sense
of peace overtook him
An
inner inexplicable assurance
That
his journey home was right.
He felt
suddenly at ease and, turning round,
Saw
people rising as one from their seats
Quickly
assembling their luggage and moving
Towards
the gate for their departure.
He went
back against the flow to find his bags
And say
goodbye to those who had been his intimates.
But as
he made his way to where he’d been
He saw
what seemed to be starry darkness –
As if
the wall had melted away –
And
people vanishing into the fringes of his eyes.
He
somehow knew the young man who stood there.
It must
have been outside for the darkness
Stretched around, sealing the horizons.
He
approached the man, who pointed to the sky
And
there, igniting the dark in golden sprays,
Eight
glowing comets moved softly through the night
Slowly
rising, turning, dipping, gliding
Like
gilded dolphins hooping through a sea of blue.
Their
tails, from which auras of sparkle
Would
fizz and fade, were interwoven and moving
As if
guided by an intelligence
As if
the comets were on the kite strings controlled
By this
young man as he moved his hands.
Then
the comets began dissolving –
Yet
their particles realigned and coalesced
Into
luminous strokes with dots and squiggles –
And he
realised they were giant words of Hebrew,
That
they were telling him what his purpose was,
What
his mission was on earth.
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