STANDING MID-PHOTO

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Scythes sing through the corn;

the sheaves are bound and stooked (reservation of tiny wigwams).

One old clydesdale snorting, trudges through clouds;

pitchforks hoist and glitter in the sun.

I stand mid-photo holding Jack’s bridle, a townie romantic,

never wanting the day to end  -  but it has ended!

The bothy is empty, horsemen gone, with their secret words, their squeeze-boxes and ballads.

No more, the tinkling bells of harness, or sparks lighting the dawn mornings, as jack stamped the cobbled yard, impatient to be away, to drag a plough and a hundred gulls behind him the day long.

The millstone leans a weary shoulder against the old cottage, the plough, gone to rust, stands red amongst the roses gone to briar.

I return the sepia photograph to its rusty nail on the stable wall…and go!

the earth

rising in great waves

gulls’ screaming

OASIS OF PEACE

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Trudging through dripping pines, and knee high ferns, we arrive:

an old gamekeeper’s hut  -   here the  gralloched deer hung and bled

(a groove cut in the floor letting the blood run back into the earth);

now  a nine foot by five foot crucifix takes up all floor space; the life- size Christ resting on the timbers, head lolling  -  as once the great stag, his blood drained from him, stared out from under the thorns of his tines.

We gather round the cross, the old man holding one nailed hand, and we enter that

silent and timeless space: prayer;

whilst beams of light criss-cross through the slatted windows,

fixing  an eternal hologram.

treading on a chestnut

the shell breaks

...little crown of thorns