rachel-burch
English
Devon based Landscape Photographer Rachel Burch BA Hons / / Living & Working on Dartmoor / / I am a professional photographer and have an educational background in Arts and Humanities ( BA honours degree in Film and English studies from UEA and a Diploma in Photography.) . I have developed arrange of expertise over the past 20 years which includes basic darkroom technique and embracing digital technology. / / My first choice of equipment is a Nikon D200 camera and a Manfrotto tripod. / / I have exhibited my work at a local and national level the most recent being at Duchy Square in Princetown in June 2011. / / I complement my visual work with self- penned poetic writing and both my imagery and writing reflect a deeply held love of the Westcountry landscape. I have published my poetic work in two separate collections / I provide group and personal tuition and mentoring on site on Dartmoor with demonstrations of technique and composition.
Please don’t ask me about the
Shake in my hands,
The kicks of my legs
The pain behind my eyes.
What keeps me
In these beds, these chairs...
What made me scream in my sleep
In those first years...
Ask me how I feel
When I see a buzzard fly low
Scaling the fields with its beauty.
Ask me how I feel when I see a kingfisher
Trail blue beauty on a grey day.
Ask me how mossy rivers
Still weave a path
Around my heart. I
Feel their flow still, from here.
Ask me how I feel
When my fragile body
Sits beside them
In those precious moments
Held high against the grey.
Ask me how I feel
When blackbirds
At dusk promise beauty
Scythed feather calls
From the dark.
Ask me how I feel
When the shadows move the hills
When light shapes the dark
When the old gods call in
Winter winds.
Ask me how I feel
When I capture their image
On a sensor, when my
Heart soars with the swallows.
Feb 13, 2018
Feb 13, 2018 at 1:34 PM UTC
Blackbird song pierces the rain
A green thread of Spring,
A needle in a dark woven tapestry.
It dances through me
Beauty, flying slow, curling green
As I open my eyes to the day.
RB
16/5/17
May 16, 2017
May 16, 2017 at 1:39 PM UTC
I miss hearing the owl's call
I imagine walking to the field nearby
To wait and listen
To the winter's earthed silence
And the call that heralds the night
To feel the silent wings slice the air
And to feel the birds freedom
Calling back feathered arrows on the
Starry breeze
The sweet smell of a winters night
Fills me and I await her call.
Dec 12, 2015
Dec 12, 2015 at 8:11 AM UTC
We were built as a compass to the
Stars and the sun
The moon held us
As the earth turned.
We were raised in wildwood
Times, when fires burned
In hearts above.
Standing still, prayers still
Drip from us,
We hold your knowledge
In the turning of the sun.
RB
Nov 21, 2015
Nov 21, 2015 at 1:32 PM UTC
We have stood ship backed
Against the wind, and the rain
Our roots delve deep in the Devon soil.
Moss, and bird song protect us
We watch, we breath as the sun turns.
Our branches hold a thousand lives
Earthbound we know our songs.
Spinning endlessly under the ancient stars
Nov 20, 2015
Nov 20, 2015 at 12:03 PM UTC
What it would be to have wings
And lift oneself up
To have
Feathers jewelled like the dark,
Evergreens in the inky night.
To stretch out and hover fast
Against star led currents
And glowing thermals.
The world stretched out beneath,
Like reams of dark memory
Inscribed against iridescent feather.
And then to glide, to down soar
Landing slow, to feel earth's winged beat
Again, and hold the feathered
Jewels against the heart.
Nov 20, 2015
Nov 20, 2015 at 7:59 AM UTC
The moon dazzled me last night,
As I woke from dreams of Saxon warriors.
Swords and shores helmed deep
Across the years.
A ship sunk In a low east hill
A helmet turns with the lunar tide.
Bodies and bone turned to sand
Empty caskets blank to the starry sky,
Warriors, lovers, beholders
Slip into their Earth.
A graveyard of ship sails and men
The tongue of a dragon whispers
And calls them from the depths
Of the river
To clear water on the other side.
Nov 20, 2015
Nov 20, 2015 at 7:55 AM UTC
Last night I was a wolf
Roaming the far west glen
Where the ocean meets the dune grass
And the pines melt into the sand
I ran with my brothers and sisters
Under the star heralded sky.
I reached a rise in the lit land
And howled a bellow to the rising
Yellowed moon, the cold air
Seared my fur. And I was at one
With the wild, holly berries glowed
Red like plant fire in the branches
And the wave led silence
Brought me home.
Nov 20, 2015
Nov 20, 2015 at 7:54 AM UTC
I have not the words
For my lines, they have evaded me.
Sometimes I feel them slip
Under the horizon
Out of my eye line
Alive in the cracks
Like the edge of a mirror.
I imagine them, on the edge,
Their horizon, being lit by
The moon and the sun
Day and night, passes and scythed letters
I cannot remember, sink deep in the
Earth, my words, slip
In this fog.
I hope I can reach them soon,
Lit by the years, and the moon and sun,
My lost words under the horizon.
RB
Nov 20, 2015
Nov 20, 2015 at 7:52 AM UTC
I watched you today;
I admired your strutting decadence
Unruly, dishevelled bird of jagged honesty
Ruffled, disrespectful feathers that shine
And reflect your begging, squawking call
You and four of your friends,
Dragged down a helpless potato I
Left out for you;
Pinioned it to the ground
With strutted abandon
Oh bird much maligned;
Bird of ungainly beauty
Hobo, derelict, winged, caller
When you murmur the
Shaking stirred skies
With your flocks,
The noise black swirled and reckless
Never fails to make us catch our breath
That such flock - formed beauty could come
From a ragged kingdom call
Makes my own wings;
Take Flight
Feb 9, 2013
Feb 9, 2013 at 6:01 PM UTC