My poor sycamore
Alas it is no more
A great tree it was
Opening its huge branches to the sky
Squirrels ran up and down
Its mighty trunk.
Tree creepers upside down
Came headfirst from lofty branches high
It was a sight to see each day
As it dominated the village scene
With its boughs and leaves so green
In midge filled summer heat
It is very sad to see it no more
My poor beautiful sycamore
David Marshall
The first flakes of snow coldly kiss my cheek
Melt and are gone,
Replaced quickly again by others
But determinedly, head down, I still press on,
I know that snow is forecast
And quicken my stride up the fell.
I am checking and closing down my traps
Before the forecast wintry spell.
Three traps I am closing
While still the snow is light,
And in the grey of winter’s day
I strive to finish quickly
Before the onset of bleak night.
I am determined to complete the task
Before light fades away,
And lengthen my stride, collie by my side,
Constant as ever disregarding the weather
My ever faithful guide.
The task is simple. I reach with my stick
Put pressure on the treadle,
Give a firm push and the door swings shut
The trap is now disabled.
I repeat the procedure at each trap
Then Fly and I drop down the path
Through the swirling snow,
Both I am sure pleased with ourselves
As I start the van for home.
Colin Armstrong
Inspired by Exhibition – at the Tate Modern
My name is Georgia, and I am in the desert at dawn. I love this place, the silence, the smell of the desert sand and the wind in my hair. I am alone here. The distant hills not yet touched by the sun are dark and brooding. The sky is cerulean, fading to rose. It is still cold, but soon it will be too hot to walk here, so I must hurry to find what I am looking for – bones – bleached white by the sun. I have just found a little skull with antlers, and I will paint it against this dawn sky. I paint to show you beauty in unexpected places.
The dawn light is giving way to an azure sky as hard as the bones I have just found with holes in them. I will paint them against the fierce sky to make fine abstracts.
The sun is beginning to burn my face, the wind has gone, and I must leave this wild place, but I will be back.
My name is Georgia. Georgia O’Keeffe, remember me.
Sylvia Stevens
I wake with a thud in my guts, and flip through the pages of a brain dull with sleep: parents, fine, son, fine as far as I know, husband, not quite fine, but I’m fine with that. I roll over and try to catch the picture now melting away; spilling across the road and dripping into the drain. I reach out and grab what I can: an angry baby in a high chair wearing a grubby nappy, a handful of £5 notes lying on the table, another adult who can’t be seen and, in the distance, a wail of anguish. I think that we are trying to flee something or someone, and I am in that controlled panic that lingers into wakefulness. With a thudding chest I shut my eyes and try to gather back the warm covering of sleep, but it too has slipped away. And a blade of sunlight cuts through the dark, returning day into the room.
I close dry, tired eyes and move blindly towards a wall of bare back, nuzzling, seeking comfort, and find none.
CODE
School bus
The stone bus shelter smelling of urine, a punctured football under the bench
A laminated timetable and Man United graffiti on the noticeboard
Echoes of insults and taunts bounce around its walls
Like billiard balls looking for their targets
Transit lounge in Dubai airport during the Haj
Men in white robes sleep curled round their bags next to a clacking moving walkway
Trim bearded young men who ooze wealth from their pores
Fuss over wheezing wizened companions
Whilst prayers and announcements boom from a tannoy above their heads
Packing the car for university
A sandwich toaster perches on top of a printer still in its John Lewis delivery box
A clarinet case with its indecipherable grimy name tape rests on a sticker covered laptop
A camera captures teeth clenched in a fixed grin in front of the open car boot
While a Harry Potter duvet spills towards the damp gravel driveway
Cathy Johnson
When I find it hard to pray
My thoughts to music start to stray
Music soothes a need in me
It helps me form the words to say
That as a child slipped glibly off the tongue
But have been lost along the way
A life enriched with music brings
Compassion, love, a soul with wings
Music fills my heart with joy
And the power that it brings
Is more primitive than prayer
In the Valley of the Kings
A prayer at night, a prayer by day
Music everywhere
My parents’ gift to me was music
Their legacy is prayer
Mary Younger
One
My eyes flicker over yours
I capture their ocean blue
Like a giggle. I save it for later,
So I can feel it billow
Watch it soar like a kite
Dancing on a day full of yellow.
Two
Rain weeps across the window
Creeping a diagonal path
A reminder that life is not straight
Or forward but meandering,
Slow; a sudden rush.
Faster falls the rap tap patter
Droplets dart and shuffle together
Race and slide, transparently
Slip over the edge to a life unseen;
Their fluid dance, a silent stream.
Tanya Laing
I cut my finger this morning
watched the drops red, red drip
I imagined the small scarlet mounds
of parachutes reddening on Flanders Fields
on many shirt fronts and coat lapels
these poppies bloom today
the crowds gawp at the screaming sky
as fireworks follow the sun going down
slowly the hordes full of candy floss
patiently surge across the acrid ground
as many, so many we have never met
nor will we remember them
morning sees the park strewn
with mangled detritus, flattened chips
time still ticks on as we grow old
we forget or never knew the brave
Sue Banister
Stillness, silence, listening
hearing what?
Bells in valleys, warm sun.
Light on mountain peaks, on snow.
The evening light pale crimson
heather, rock, water,
large trout swimming in pools.
Scent of pines after rain.
Listening to silence
Howgills, their summits,
peace, a quietness not heard elsewhere.
Silence and peace
listening to that small voice
God, man, earth,
past, present, future.
Listen to peace, to peace, to peace.
David Marshall
Good counsel on this snowy – and in some other ways momentous – morning.
– M&P
Peace
Alone I float upon a tideless ocean
There is no wind, no sound, nor any motion
Blissful in Summer haze I laze without emotion
Alone upon a tideless ocean
Sedated, satisfied, replete a Sleeping Beauty
Who has no cares, no conscience, and no moral duty
There is no winter here, no heat nor cold
No seasons change so none like me grow old
All is a perpetual Youth in a sunlit noon of gold
No time will pass and so no years will roll
Here I can smell the scented shores around
See hills where vaporous water falls without a sound
Furtive it glides among the leafy trees
Idling through sunny glades to soak the thirsty ground
Where Summer flowers fruit without disease
Where no lilies fester and the rose no petals leave
And in the gossamer grass the poppy nods at ease
It’s here I’ll dream within a hidden hollow
At peace and healed of every searing sorrow
The past does not exist. I fear no morrow
Hope I know not, so no despair can follow.
Peace? No, this is Hell I dream
My passions still burn fiercely my desire screams
Give me the storms, the battles, life’s extremes
Labour, suffering, pain. Yes let me weep
But save me O thou Unfathomable God
From a life of fantasy, of sleep.
Vi Taylor
please see also Remembering
last month in winter’s dog days
when light was a miracle we blessed
buried somewhere deep in our hearts
we knew that skies would brighten
and rain no more pour down
that spring would come full blast
with clear skies and the power to shock
the sun will warm us with force
piercing the cold wet of the earth
stirring the unseen seeds of hope
into life with its full blown glory
dazzling our minds with the beauty
only nature can bring to fruition
Jill Faux
we knew … / that spring would come full blast
Now there’s a cheering thought on a chilly November night with talk of snow in the air!
– M&P
H is for handle, which is OK to touch as we leave, but screamingly hot on our return. It belongs to the white Renault 4, parked beneath the house between concrete stilts.
We check under the car before getting in, making sure there’s no cat, dog, or sleeping snake to be run over. The curved chrome handle on the door is smooth and slightly cool to my hand. I put my towel on the seat, flap some mosquitoes out and slide a window open.
The road leaves town and heads across open country. Mum parks on waste ground next to a sign with large red Chinese letters. Andrew and I hurry on wooden boarding across a stretch of oily black water dotted with water lilies. When we are safe on the other side we argue.
‘Nothing is bottomless, how can there be no bottom to the water?’
‘The bottom is the rocks on fire in the middle of the earth!’
‘What would happen if I fell in Mum? Would I go down and down forever?’
‘You could swim. That’s why we’re here.’
‘But there might be some horrible monster with great big tentacles that lives in there that would pull my legs down and down forever!’
We run to the pool, Olympic sized, with concrete diving boards that stretch high into the blue sky. I push through the turnstile while Mum pays. My dress comes off the minute Mum is at the side of the pool and I am instantly ready to hunt for treasure.
The water suffocates with its warmth. It’s as if there is nowhere for my body’s heat and sweat to go but back inside me. Water presses against my eyes while I search for pieces of eight, it gets up my nose when I do racing turns at the side of the pool. When I get bored of swimming widths and collecting coins I walk daringly round to the diving boards and bounce gently on a low board a few times. I jumped off it once, honest.
Some days families sit on the grass around the edge and the ice cream kiosk opens to sell the only choc ices in town. The chocolate cracks and breaks between my teeth and cold cream floods my mouth.
The sun dries me and I pop my dress back over my swimming costume. This time the car handle burns my palm. I snatch at it as quickly as possible. The damp skin on my bottom sticks and slides on the hot vinyl seat. We lean out of the windows for air until Mum parks in a shady place beside a bakery. We follow her in to watch while she orders three white loaves to be sliced and bagged. The blades come down like guillotines, leaving perfect even slices. She hands us a loaf as we leave and we tear into it, pushing slice after slice of the warm bread into our bottomless stomachs.
So H is for Hot really, the car handle, the water in the swimming pool, and the bread.
Cathy Johnson
Mungrisdale Writers 
