This dream is a moon-faced owl shining brightly in a silver tree, its amber orbs cups of honey that drip sweetly in a sleeper’s eye. This dream is a rasping call that echoes through windy branches, the spiky tip of a nightmare’s tail brushing against a windowpane illuminated with star-fall – before it flicks and […]
Category: Poems
A poem to sum up my feelings in this post.
Only a Rehearsal
This week I’ve been training. All I’ve had to do is sit and watch for birds. Mostly it was raining; feathered creatures sat in the hedge and observed me through raindrops watching them through raindrops that plopped and spat on the windows. A pair of robins and some finches ganged up with a thrush and […]
View from Sea to Shore
The coastline is a rugged spine of cliff, rocky ribs rise and fall with each breath of wind and wave that shift the distant skiff. Its feet are firm and solid in the depths of tides that loosen roots and bits of stones like rotten teeth; they tumble to the beach with salty water sucking […]
What She Told Her
She always knew the little dark-haired, brown-eyed child was her mother’s secret. She’d kept the outings in a stranger’s car, ice creams at the airport and seaside trips close to her chest, being only five or six, and loving mystery. When the baby arrived, nobody said a word. There were whispers behind closed doors. The […]
A Welcome Pause after December Rain
At the window, I watch a sparrow strip berries from the hedgerow. The magpie has ceased its chatter, contemplating things that matter before giving its opinions on the day. And now the sparrow has flown away. Except for a cat that gently purrs, I sit here at my desk alone, my fingers chilled to the […]
Queen of Winter
Cailleach, the Celtic winter queen, atop the Cliffs of Moher, her domain the time from Samhainn to Bealltainn, strikes the ground with her frosty staff, freezing the tops of hill and mountain. From her creel drop curious stones carved with magic, the ancient bones of her husbands and her many children, promises of fertile field […]
Wonderful Alien
Wide-eyed and full of wonder, you hold my hand and guide me through your world. I can only blunder, an ancient alien who has lived here too long to appreciate a single leaf, a muddy pebble or the sun on water. Now I have your eyes to discover the beautiful among the fearful, forget for […]
Embraced by the Woods
The moment boots imprinted soil, the scent of bark and undergrowth embraced us. We brushed past rusty ferns and sodden grass, and acres of trees exhaled into fragments of sky and cloud, a sigh that hugged our lungs and filled them with a woody song. Pinecones on the path, like Hansel and Gretel crumbs, paved […]
Breaking the Silence of January
After the revelry of Christmas and New Year, the silence of January is solid as a block of ice, occasionally melting into shifting swathes of mist grey as wood pigeons and musty house mice. No gentle coo, whistle or twitter of birds, the day is mute; no body warmth or human words until the fire’s […]
Enigma
We need iron in our blood to carry oxygen from lungs to cells, and yet iron left in damp air will rust and its shiny grey will crust with red. The earth is rich and hard with iron, mined for making steel, its solidity tempered and twisted into buildings, pylons and bridges, and its smoothness […]
writing in north norfolk 