Lockdown #2

My Church


Shambling, ambling, doesn't count as stride,
Gloom, holly-bound path, wet, autumn tears,
My dog appears, steaming, panting and bright,

Gone again, mad squirrel pursuit, rain clears.

Enter the oak, sycamore, ash, hazel and birch,
Yellows and browns, reds, dirty greens, bare trees,
Air still, deep, weighty, here is my church,
Stop, stand, inhale my prayer, not on my knees.

Ancient, but ageless, rock-piles, mossy boughs,
Internal settlings, reflections, regret, meditations,
Damp leaf carpet, soft-treading my vows,
Reviewing my promise, in this holy station.

This inner stoic turns, slowly breathing in heaven,

To the east seems a nave, high vaults above,
Glints of holy beams, through branches are woven,
Deeply trailing stoles of ivy, framing this love.

My arboreal cathedral, deliver your peace,
Save this disciple, your communion my dog and I need,
Lichen skinned trunks, deflecting the beast,
Holy broad-leaf sanctum, my soul do you feed.

My prayer, the peace of the deep places,
My woods, my church, lifts weight from my mind,
Escapes with my breathing, the last of our races,
Answered or not, ambling, shambling, my dog walks behind.

Difficult


Foundation, roots, sanctuary,
Emerging from oppressive valley deep,
to the sunny uplands, shocked,
Rocked by a page in your own history,

Unexpected, unwelcome, and random.

Gone are central certainties, securities,
Too late for apologies, for hugs,
For shared ice-cream moments,
Sunny gardens, terminal memory,
Blue lights, and oxygen deficits.

Echoes of rocked foundations, linger,
A week, a month, tidally random,
Unsaid, untold stories, histories,
Sense of sanctuary remains, altered,
Sunny sometimes, heavy dampness, inundate.

Strive for the higher ground, clear,
Sunlit, breezy, clarity of thought,
Helps not, allowing the cloudy grief,
Tidal waves, cliff side, unwary,
Unwanted, but unstoppable, coin obverse.

An emotionally, forced, adulthood,
From deep valley drifting years, granted,
Clouds revealing golden shafts of love,
Then dark, threatening, glowering drizzle,
Mist, thought-fogs, dark slides into hell.

Small steps around cliff bases,
Overwhelming tasks, much too big “asks”,
No ladders, no lifts, just silent pitons,
Small uphill steps, some clarity,
And threatening, and reality avalanches.

Even when you stumble on a sheep trod,
A route to higher space, clarity,
Storm clouds gather, black dogs bay,
Rooks and ravens, circling your dreams,
Hide some of the dry spells, the cold air.

Searching for joy, free thinking, unbridled,
Impossible cliffs, unreachable uplands,
Brought to earth, and kept by your heart,
A hood, a falconers burqa, rufter,
Keeping me from seeing my way out.

A bloody double rainbow, after hellish,
Tiring nightmarish, and sleepless wallowings,
The prayer to a god you don't know,
His/her answer, and a pre-dawn walk,
Pilgrimage to grief, loss, and deep love.

Months after brain categorised healing,
Perhaps editing, portraying, remembering,
Changes, but can't stop odd waves,
Or avalanches, or dark moment tears,
But strangely can also carry love and smiles.

Did my eulogy, this isn't it,
It's my catharsis, attempt at, is all,
Rationalising the already rational,
Squaring the circle, or vice versa,
Tyring to get it together, and acceptance.

Can't rail against the clock, the diary,
The night, loss, circles, nature,
Nor the unsaid, over-sights,
Taking a lovely sanctuary for granted,
Before personal earthquake armageddon.

I haven't written about my grief, not directly, but one of these clearly isn't even meant as a poem, as such, but it does relate to the avalanches of sadness, and unbridled grieving moments that occasionally threaten to overwhelm me.

The clock is one from St David's church, near where I live, and the time portrayed is AM, not PM.

At present, that is pretty much all I think I'm ready to say about it.


Lockdown #1 started off in a surprisingly wonderful and surreal way, empty roads, empty hills, peace, unseasonably warm and sunny weather, and good grief, the outstanding thing was the birdsong, not that we're ever really short of it hereabouts, but it was just out of this world.

Lockdown eventually palled though, and then the world tilted on it's axis, and my life will never be the same again.

Lockdown #2 is just a mish-mash of seeing your neighbours ignore the rules, and people start to lose their patience with one another. It's like they're reverting to type for some sad reason. The hills are fuller than ever, and the roads are only marginally less busy than pre-Covid-19.

I have turned back to trying to write, to improve my photography, difficult though that is seeing as how it's raining or misty all the time, more or less, and the days are so short now that evening walks can't really involve a camera much anyway.

Loss upon loss, my entire photography archive: gone, poetry? Gone, and countless other creative projects, my business accounts for the last 20 years......all gone. Don't rely on a single external hard-drive for "back-up" use two..... lesson badly sadly learned........

Life as we knew it, gone, but that's nothing to do with the computer.

2020? Can I have my money back please?