In memory of David Bowie, died 8 January 2016: ‘Second star to the right, and straight on till morning’.

In the blue midnight
A crown of stars
Lights on the head
Of winter-king, summer-king,
Oak and holly,

In the blue midnight
Wheeling and gliding
On glassy waters;
Up and out, down and back,
Turning the year.

In the blue midnight
Time’s hand is cold,
Eternity’s colder;
But infinite skies
Diamond-bright, featherlight,

In the blue midnight
Open the path,
leading us home.

A wind-turbine’s lament. (29 January 2017)

I am a wind-turbine. For five and a half years
I have been stood on this nice hill,
Turning my blades as I was taught.
They say I am making something called ‘power’
So you can boil your kettles and make tea,
Turn on your heating and snuggle up
Cosy and warm when it’s cold; or run the air-conditioning
When it gets hot.

My name is Wallie,
And I am very sad.
From my hill I used to see
A sandy bay, with lots of nice grass
Growing along its edge, and pretty flowers bobbing
in the same winds that turn my blades.
I really liked those flowers,
And felt close to them. They danced like me
In the cold winds, warm winds, summer breezes
And autumn gales coming off the sea.

And you walked there as well, sometimes,
And saw the flowers, and your dogs ran along
Between the sand-dunes, and rushed in and out of the waves
Which broke on the beach, where your children played
And built sand-castles.

But now people have come;
They had huge orange diggers which clashed with the soft
Colours of beach and sea and sky;
And they ripped up the grass and the flowers and the sand-dunes,
And then people laid sterilized turf
And made bunkers full of infertile sand
Where nothing grew.
And the whole beach was walled off, so no-one could walk there.
And the dogs no longer chased their tails, and the flowers no longer bloomed;
And all the gulls which used to swoop over the foam
Went away.

And now all I have to look at
Is people with check trousers and garish hats,
And serfs carrying bags full of funny-shaped sticks;
They walk about on the turf and hit little *****
And then they go to where they’ve landed –
Not on foot, with dogs and children running –
But in little carts in clashing colours.

I asked the wind-turbine next to me,
Which can get pirate radio frequencies on its antennae,
What was going on and he said
(his name’s Wallie too); they are playing ‘golf’.
And I said: why? and he said: they have nothing better to do.

The other turbines and I (we’re all called ‘Wallie’)
discussed what to do;
And we decided I should write this letter
To any newspaper which will print it, and complain:

‘We used to have a nice view from this hill,
Of a sandy bay, with lots of nice grass
Growing along its edge, and pretty flowers bobbing
In the same winds that turn our blades.
We really liked those flowers,
And felt close to them. They danced like us
In the cold winds, warm winds, summer breezes
And autumn gales coming off the sea.

But now all we have to look at
Is barren grass, denatured sand,
And people in garish clothes who do not care
For flowers and grass and dogs and seagulls
But just hit little ***** about.

No one asked us
If we wanted this change; we were not consulted
And we want to know why we, who serve you faithfully
And give you heat and light, and power your homes
Are worth less than these other people,
Just because they are ‘rich’?’

We are only wind-turbines,
But our voice should also count.
And it you don’t agree
Ask yourself: how much is your own voice worth?
And why?’

Between (2010)

Most things are considered either/or:
dark/light, now/then, good/bad (we don’t say ‘evil’).
Everything has its place, its little room
in which it sits, waiting till needed.

Of course there are different ways of ‘looking’,
lateral/linear, more opposition,
and the act of seeing is known to affect the seen –
though I’ve never been sure if it affects the seer too.

But I have ever been a lover of twilight,
dawning of day and falling of dusk.
Bright light dazzles and night obscures;
it’s the slow reveal that brings revelation.

So I don’t want to choose ‘either’, I want ‘both’.
Or better still, ‘between’- that acre of land
between the waves’ edge and the sea-wrack cast
high on the shore - now wet, now dry,

a merging of this and that, of here and there;
which can only be ploughed with a ram’s horn
and sown with spicy pepper, to bring forth
unknowable harvests, glistening with salt.

No opposites, no opposition here,
only a constant ever-changing flow
in the slanting, shivering light of dawn-dusk,
and the now-then day-night of a timeless earth.