I

In the afternoon

Low cloud a shadow blanket
against the hills, stillness
in a summer landscape but for
insistent sheep,
a railway train,
pigeons conversing
in the tree-laced lane.

Before the conservatory windows
stands the kitchen table
relocated to accommodate
this making, these crafted
objects turned and touched
between her small hands,
between her deft fingers.


II

In wonder

You stopped by the roadside
in wonder at the profusion
of grasses, weeds and flowers,
whelmed over by a confusion
of chaotic design you know
can never be brought entire
to imagination’s mirror.

But surely a corner
of these complex forms,
in a quicksilver moment
you’ll catch – one day.
Until then, hold to this image
in wonder.


III

Whispering

Your beauty catches me
as a breath of wind
against the face
wholly and fulfilling
as your gentle kiss .

I imbibe your stillness here,
as head-pillowed you rest
into sleep in this quiet space,
this unaccustomed place
where coming together
(separate in our thoughts,
apart in our work),
we find ourselves
whispering,
as we meet: to walk
to sit to eat to talk,
as if to undisturb the flow
of measured actions,  
determined words.


IV

Patch and Sew

Evening gathers
patch and sew
this woman’s work
bent head
the forearm slightly
raised to hold
a purposeful hand
the needle and its thread
A right leg rests its knee
on the chair’s soft arm
a left-facing shin
foot-firm to the floor
On her lap the garment
she has worn today
she will wear tomorrow


V

Across the Valley

Across the valley
from end to end
a spread of hills
in clouds’ pale shadows.
Above,
their floating forms
of white, of grey
of dusky charcoal dark.
But look,
the sun peeks through
to fall in strips and squares.
The moorland coloured.

Waves of dry-stone walls,
they rise and dive to guard
the foreground pasture-land
where sheep are loud
and cattle uneasy.
Beyond, a wooded belt.
There, a viaduct’s arch.
Here, a limestone kiln
where her figure stoops
to pick up rusty things
off broken ground.


VI

Wild Flowers

Ah Sweet Briar,
my little Vetchling
from the meadow,
but common as Valerian
in a Lady’s Bedstraw.

Wild as Onion,
Black as Knapweed,
sweet this Meadow Buttercup
its great Burnet a Tufted Vetch.

Oh Hedge a tiny Woundwort,
Hedge along a Bedstraw
Crane's Billed in the meadow
that Ox-Eyed eye-oxed Daisy.


VII

Trainspotting

Figures in the field
they stood expectant.

Placed apart
As guns before a drive,
before the beaters
raised the birds,
four men wait for a train.
One braced against a wall,
camera at the ready.

Out of the still afternoon
a heavy breathing monster
displaced the valley air,
the sounds of bleating sheep,
the twitter tweet of moorland birds.
It appeared just for a moment,
revealed itself entire.

Seven carriages red,
the engine green its tender black,
it crossed the Smardale viaduct,
(as if posing for a photograph)
then disappeared from view.
Nicely spotted.


VIII

At 5.0am

To sit in silence
at this early hour
knowing the inevitability
of my desire
to touch
your waking self
warm from sleep.

It is at once so beautiful,
and yet so difficult:
to put such thoughts aside,
when the paragraph begs completion,
when rhyme and rhythm
seek right resolution.

I pause constantly:
to hold myself close
to your imagined cheek,
lightly-freckled
by yesterday’s
sun and wind.

Beside no temple,
Ornamental bridge or boat,
Over a village pond
It leans.
Its elongated leaves
Of many greens
Rise and fall en masse,
A brush of thin branches
Moved by a noontide breeze.
Painting the water.

I’ve reached the point where I start
to make sense of things. I think.

I’m trying hard at my desk
this dull June day
with its pencil-grey sky
promising rain.

But I know in the fields
the whitest wild campion
has come into flower.
And the vase that used to stand
on the bedroom mantlepiece
dropping jasmined petals
into your shoes is now filled
afresh by your careful hand.

Oh to be better at where I am
rather than where I might be.
And to think beautifully,
each and every moments’ minute.

Here’s a man
Arms outstretched,
Legs apart,
Staring up to heaven.
He’s big this man.

This is woman
Arms outstretched,
Her legs are crossed.
She has a secret
And a mouth.

If she turns around
To face the man
(and crosses her legs
over the man’s)
They become a pair.
They might (even) be in love.

Love needs a heart,
A heart of four chambers.

A heart to love
Needs a flow of blood.

The man and woman
Carry their loving heart
Of four chambers
On their heads.

To keep the heart warm
They need a roof.

And for good luck
The man and the woman
Put a tiger’s claw
On the roof .

This is love.

Columbine upon my desk,
a dusty pinkish
unstable shade of purple -
aquilegia vulgaris -
thought to be thankless,
even a sign of ingratitude
this Orphelian flower.
Mine has ten doves in a circle,
though tradition claims it seven:
Holy Mary’s footsteps,
Isaiah’s Gifts of the Spirit.
For me it must remain those final bell-like
chords of Messiaen’s La Columbe,
described in his mother’s verse as
'Cloches d’angoisse et larmes d’adieu’.

I dreamt my tower before my tower
Arose from oak-treed woods,
And standing far above a sparkling sea
Providing welcome space: a home
From where to think, compose,
Be quite alone.

When becalmed by night, the youngest girl
Of three and yet *****, I sat and pondered
Many silent hours, the house quite still,
(No music sounding out, or I to give it sound)
And sitting so did spin a future for myself:
A castle-keep upon a point of wooded land
With sea to either side and hills behind,
No, mountains surely, and across the water
A sprinkle of isles all shapes and hues,
Their aspect changing hour on hour.

It was not arranged that we should meet,
'Twas a love match made by Cupid’s hand.
At Mrs Morran’s weekly dance he came,
The second son, a slim, dark soul,
Rich in silence and sharp looks
He did at once unlock my heart, so seated
At the instrument my hands did briefly
Falter at the keys to see him frown then look
When I began a *Menuet from Playford’s book.
I sang, but now cannot remember what,
My voice seemed strangely not my own,
But distant, far away and lacking tone.

Faining not to dance he later came and spoke
Of Mr Handel whom he’d lately seen and heard
On that great man’s brief sojourn in our city.
Masterly playing, he said, rich in invention
And delight. You know his work? Oh yes I cried,
Of course, of course I play his keyboard Canzonets
Until my sisters scold me and my finger sore
With trills and turns and ornaments apace
Such grace this music . . . and he laughed.

Six months later we were wed,
He, a most Honourable son by birth,
I, his Lady came to be.
Through music our love begat
An heir then daughters three
Before five years had passed.
And then . . .
With swiftness hardly comprehending
He became the heir and Laird
Of 20,000 acres in Bendeloch, Mid Lorn,
His father and his brother dead, their ship
The Coral foundering in Atlantic storms.
And so did Lochnell, newly built,
Become our home, its policies
******* broad Archmucknisk Bay
That favoured to the west the Isle of Mull
and to the north Argyll and Bute.

As children grew and wifely obligations
Changed I became again a dreaming soul
Returned by degrees to that first love,
My music, that had brought to me such joy,
Affection, happiness, delight.
My husband busy with affairs abroad,
I filled the house with Mr Handel’s
Strains and finding I could improvise
Upon his grounds, discovered too
That I had tunes a’plenty, and not only
In my fingers, but in my restless mind.
Whilst other ladies write and paint
I scribe the symbols of my art, and then
In music’s script composed and scored
To paper with a draughtsman’s pen.

Each day I went to seek my muse,
Would find her form in nature’s grace.
My garden walled in granite stone
Held leafy treasures safe from wind and storm.
But ascending thence through oak woods
To peninsulary heights I glimpsed afar
A fine, majestic view towards the Highland
Ranges so rich in Gaelic names (and oft in May
Still topped with ice and snow).
Such sublimity I felt when gazing
On the aspect of these distant hills
That music came unbidden to my waiting hand
And, returning to my study, I would play and write
My manuscripts till late at night.

My husband smiled at such full-fancied thought
Then hid from me a brave intent and plan.
Whilst away one spring we travelled south
To Venice and Milan, he ordered built
A tower to rise above the trees
With winding stair and tiny chamber
At its top where my small clavichord
might rest and furnish me with
With gentle sounds to speak of music
On the very peak of Gardh Ards.

Arriving home in burnished autumn’s wake
He led me to the very top, and there
Above the forest sward, rose up a tower,
A tower from whose fine granulated heights
A Lady who wrote music might imbibe
A richer view, and then in silent meditation
Take from landscape’s glory all and more.
And so inscribed upon a plaque reads
*Erected for Lady Campbell anno 1754.

The hill
beckons
willing feet,
take firm steps
on steep slopes.
Rising quickly,
a first view.

Thereafter,
and steeper still,
rocks replace grass,
boots slide on lichened stone.

As mist falls
a sudden chill.
Silence.

Sightless of distance
each 'summit' brings
yet one more.