The Banished Gods

Near the headwaters of the longest river
There is a forest clearing.
A dank, misty place,
Where light stands in columns
And birds sing with a noise like paper tearing.

Far from land, from the trade routes,
In an unbroken dreamtime
Of penguin and whale,
The seas sigh to themselves,
Re-living the days before the days of sail.

Where the wires end and the moor seethes in silence,
Scattered with scree, primroses,
Feathers and humus,
It shelters the hawk and hears
In dreams the forlorn cries of lost species.

It is here that the banished gods are in hiding.
Here they sit out the centuries,
In stone, water
And the hearts of trees,
Lost in a reverie of their own natures.

Of zero growth, economics and seasonal change,
In a world without cars, computers,
Or chemical skies.
Where thought is a fondling of stones,
And wisdom a five minute silence at moonrise.

by Benjamin Grafton 2007

For Ben, 1948-2015,  from Claudia

We'll catch our fish and watch the birds,

And hunt for mushrooms in the earth,

And if there's a name you haven't yet heard,

It'll be story after story and our souls, they won't get old.

We'll joke around and start up fights,

And tell long tales into long bright nights,

And if theres's a wrong you set to rights,

There'll be story after story, and our souls, they won't get old.

We'll wear out our bodies and we'll use all our heart,

We'll take in every moment, the bright ones and the dark,

We'll cash in every chip, and we'll play every card,

And it'll be story after story, and on our souls you leave your mark.

A Winter Walk with Polyhymnia (second version - a bit more posy)

Merryvale January 2009

Let us go then you and I * 

Down these many 

Corridors of stone,

List'ning to the roaring silence,

A thaw in motion  - in somnambulant mood.

And I have seen all things, 

And all men that dwell, 

In the Hall of Royal Dûn,

At Tara, under the shadow 

Of the drifting leaf.

The rocks and trees 

Share our vision,

And like a world caught in breath 

We wait to exhale, and at the height of exhilaration 

There is sweet release.

And I have heard you calling, 

Dalua, Dalua!

Arise from your dreams on 

Mount Amara,

Polyhymnia, come and walk with me.

Come tripping down 

The nights and days,.

Mind and muse moving together, 

Intoxicating one another, 

Drinking from that conjugal cup, in silent communion,

In this eternal landscape, forever casting shadow on the past and beyond

Our present is between.

Shall we walk ?  

Shall we be amidst the feast of stones, 

The gift of pebbles, the dust of grit, 

Between the quivering branches, 

The vibrant mosses, the glistening webs?

What vaster dream can we inhabit and be amidst,

This love of earth.

V Hemingway 2009

* TS Eliot

Between Which We Walk

Merrivale January 2009

Let us go then, you and I *
Down these many corridors of stone,
Open to the winter stillness,
A thaw in motion, somnambulant in mood.
I have seen all things pass and all men go
Under the shadow of Tara's Halls,
Misting on the drifting leaf.

Listen! The rocks and trees are whispering,
And slowly, very slowly,
Like a world caught in breath we wait to exhale.
Caught between the present and future,
At the height of expectation,
Exhilaration is the moment
Of sweet release.

I have heard you calling, Dalua, Dalua!
Arise from your dreams on Mount Amara **
And walk with me, tripping down the nights and days,
Mind and muse, moving together,
A marriage of true minds
Intoxicating one another,
Drinking from that conjugal cup.

And in the eternal landscape of the here and now,
In the post-glacial history,
Lies an archive in the granite schist.
Layer upon layer of stored fable and fact,
Between which we walk, between the stones,
Over the pebbles, over the grit,
Touching the quivering branches, the soft luxuriant mosses.

Come, let us navigate through this inner landscape Polyhymnia,
You are my guide,
Tread carefully across the boulders,
Across the skeletal track,
Across the Earth's sweet cleavages.
And we, who are each of us upon the last and sharpest height,  ***
Feel the air is thin and oblivion not far away.

VH 2009

* TS Eliot

** Milton

*** Tennyson

In search of Zeus

Greece 2013

Welsh Buzzards

Welsh Buzzards
October 2009

I am sick of being old
And I pang for the ridges of Eyri
Bellowing down to the crag and cwm
Under a grey sky
Where buzzards fly.
And I long for Beudy Mawr,
With it Welshness trickle of a stream,
Staring out into a wild and barren cwm
Where buzzards ply.
I am sick of being old,
And I long for the Welsh peaks,
With their crags and cwms,
Under a grey sky
Where buzzards cry.
Keith Treacher 1923-2012

Treen

Looking towards Treen Oct 2008

We are standing on the battlements of Treen

One night, with moon full, pregnant with life,

Not a breath of wind, spellbound.

Distant sounds trail back and forth across the headland,

Winding up the veined valleys, cresting the tops,

Brushing the rocks that gaze across the concourse

Rising proud against the shadowed night.

And they are numinous still,

Eastern heads lifting to the glinting lights In distant coves,

While deep in mounds of earth, souls sleep silent,

Quickening in their slumber as they dream.

And mighty Morgawr, curled on his seat of storms,

Death and memory like the sea swirling and breaking in his thoughts,

Gigantine, his body, curled and tattooed, plays out a siege 
Against the men of means.

And they have eaten his sacred words.

And they have had their fill of sweetness.

And more -  green and sunset flushed we see, beyond far outstretched Bolerium,

Beyond the pulpit rock beckoning towards Pen-von-las,  Britannia. 
Resolutely swift, striding the cliffs, skirts billowing,

Tresses trailing deep in the darkened waters.

Seductive and secretive, nubile and ancient, maid and hag,

She is the mother and whore to the  dark-eyed seaman,

Mother and whore to the ancient tin miner; mellifluous and sweet

She sings her siren song.

And with mind of eye, with height and stature,
With mystic portent, we glimpse ancient Emain Ablach,
Liminal land, holding against converging seas.
And Manannan, weaving court in midsummer,
Asks of the women, who, with their silken threads
Join in the game of the woven dance, 
'Do you recall the palimpsest?
Give to Bran a rowan tree, let him clasp the silver apple branch, 
With blossoms white and leaves of green.
Sing to him a song no poet yet has chanted'. 

And the words are myriad, the workmanship of souls.

I sing to the ocean of past and future.

I sing to the night and all that is holy.

I sing to the mourners who gather in grief.

I sing to the saint as he exalts the almighty.

As he stands in transcendence reaching alone on his windblown island,

That glorious moment amongst seagulls and spume.

This is my moment - I defy you to see...