Shimmering Sea
Sitting at my cluttered desk
I’ve just attacked a rabbit
with a knife. Don’t fret,
it was an Easter gift,
a golden bunny bebowed
and belled, the chocolate
incised and brought to light,
rich and dark so keenly
comforting aside the coffee
beaned from Nepal.
Her gift so lovingly given
I bless her ever-thoughtfulness,
and turn my thoughts
to see her walking by the sea,
on the cliff path
by the shimmering,
glimmering sea, always
at her right hand, blue,
an April blueness
barely a footstep from
a vertical drop through
the light-filled air . . .
Heady Scents
Fox, she would say,
without so much as
a sudden sniff,
and carry on her way
alert to all and everything.
And I would wonder,
Fox? But I had not been
schooled to recognize
a creature’s scent,
though sensitive always
to the human kind:
that sweetness after ***
found in Cupid’s gym.
So the subtle coconut
of bright-flowering gorse
and garlic woodland-wild
when trodden under foot.
will have to do instead.
Brimstone and Blues
Well, the sea is blue today,
why not the butterflies too?
though seen, it seemed
for a second,
fluttering at her feet,
tumbling indecisively
in flickering flight,
then gone: to leave
a stain of perfect blue
upon the retinal cells.
Peacocks (not butterflies)
I thought it was a peacock’s cry,
but it turned to be a turkey
out in the orchard next
our path to the sea.
Such an unpleasant-looking
bird whose tatty hind-feathers
rose as its blood-red throat
trembled with venomous
indignation at our presence.
Sad creature,
so ugly,
a troubling form
lacking grace or line,
majesty or wonder,
colour or display
of the pave cristasus.
Skylarks
Larking skywards
in the soft spring
vertiginous blueness
of the daylight heavens,
on song with circular breath,
seaward and away.
We only saw it descend
and heard the formants
change of its harmoniced
voice as it brushed
the standing crop,
finally fell,
and disappeared.
Swallows
Martins maybe?
Surely swifts?
But swallows?
Not yet awhile.
Some similar birds
fresh from flight
across southern seas
appeared, tumbled over,
shook the blue air,
then disappeared, as
suddenly greedy for grubs,
insectivously joyful,
so glad to be over land
once more.
Stonechats
I take your word for it
(having still to finish
the birding book you gave
at Christmas). Sounds right:
the sound of two stones
being rubbed together?
This robin-sized bird,
though dumpy in comparison,
who likes to sit on a gorse bush
and flick it wings; a nervous habit
some might say.
Blue on Blue
The sea in your eyes
is blue on blue
dear friend, dear lover
of my earthy self
whose eyes are browny-green,
whilst your’s own cloudless sky,
reflect the still shimmering sea.
A Ruined Castle
In a gap between
Purbeck Hills.
the Castle of Corfe
stands tall yet ruined.
Kaikhosru Sorabji
once lived in its sight,
composer, pianist, recluse.
Owning a cottage
he called The Eye,
with a Steinway Grand
and a cat called Jami -
he wrote long complex music
people found difficult to play.
Eventually forbidding
all performances, he died
aged 96 - in 1988.
A curious man.
A Complete Castle
This must be an Italianate folly,
hardly ruined but complete.
We’d stopped for tea,
both hot and thirsty.
You’d hoped for ice cream
but had to wait for another day,
another place.
Had we not a train to catch,
and two miles still to walk,
we might have sat on its balcony
high above the shimmering sea,
and whilst eating ice cream,
looked on the sight of Lot’s Wife,
that white and final pillar of chalk
far out in Alum bay.
A Chapel
Profoundly square,
on a cliff-top high,
buttressed to its cardinal points
with a single window,
with a single door,
this chapel stands
where St Aldhelm
of Malmesbury,
would sing his sermons,
and, just for fun, some
hexametric enigmata
(riddles to you and me)
From his weaver’s riddle, Lorica:
non sum setigero
lanarum uellere facto
Nec radiis carpor duro
nec pectine pulsor
I am not made from
the rasping fleece of wool,
no leashes pull [me] nor
garrulous threads reverberate . . .
A Lighthouse
Brilliant white
and thoroughly walled about,
squat and unmanned,
it sits begging for
a crashing wave,
a serious storm,
but not today.
The sea is still,
calm and gently lapping
against the rocks below.
A Steam Train**
At Swanage station
just in time,
and amply satisfied
by our twelve-mile walk,
we settled ourselves
on bench-like seats
in the carriage
next the engine as
56XX Tank No.6695
took on water,
built up steam
for the seven-mile ride
past Heston Halt,
past Harman’s Cross
to Castle Corfe.
A circuit made
in seven hours
by path and rail.
A day's walk from on the Corfe Castle ro Swanage and back via the heritage steam railway.Poem titles by Alice Fox.
