POETRY

Rose - "The Poet's Wife"

JUNE

Brilliant early sun.
I cleave to sleep.
My tattered cloak of dreams
still clings to me.
Pulling it tight I turn —
caught in her beam.
Does this sun ever rest?
She comes to me —
gentle as a lover,
gossamer dressed.

So, waiting, Earth prepares :
petals unfurled,
bird song to herald her —
slumber disturbed.

Creeping, she comes melting
shadows. From her
radiant look the cool
young breezes fade.
Now in her nakedness
she visits me.
Her touch is everywhere —
Queen Midas of
the fiery embrace —
gilding the very air…
There is no hiding place.

ELDERFLOWER
(For Julie)
The white wall bears bright purple stains :
geranium flowers in the rain
have left their mark. This “flaming” June
the unexpected gusting winds
have stripped the petals from dog rose
and carpeted this grassy path.

Above, the elderflowers bloom –
corymbs of tiny star-like flowers
decked with raindrops, gleaming jewels,
are too wet for your gentle craft.

Next morning it was warm and dry,
the flowerheads were at their best
and, gently, you cut each one –
avoiding crushing them once picked.

With loving care they were prepared
and you became an alchemist,
distilling fragrant flower scent
into a nectar of pale gold.

Safe in our fridge the bottles sit,
your cordial, unexpected gift
will be enjoyed on sunny days
when essence of the countryside
transforms a cool and welcome draught.

St. JUST in ROSELAND

On the quiet road above it all,
the only sound is birdsong and slow bees;
from the lychgate, where the swallows nest each year,
you look down on the church framed by its trees.

Here lichen covered headstones flank the path,
with Humfrey’s texts, * laid out on blocks of stone
(quotations to inspire whilst climbing up —
but missed by visitants on their way down).

As legend has it, Joseph came ashore
for tin and souls and here began his search;
but the magic of this place is in the eye:
exotic plants surround this creek-side church.

When the tide is full – creek mirrors sky,
reflecting Celtic cross, the trees and church,
cedars, walnut, cypress are all there,
exotic tree ferns, buzzing limes and birch.

Thick bamboo planting makes a fine windbreak —
although the garden’s in a sheltered spot;
huge gunnera thrive down beside the creek,
the giant leaves give shelter when its hot.

Trachycarpus grows close to the graves,
myrtle flowers, acanthus fringe the creek;
this verdant Eden’s fed by springs and rills,
its Holy Well enjoys its own mystique.

In springtime there’s a sea of blue and white
when bluebells and the ramson flowers bloom;
on summer days hydrangeas – blues and pinks
and if it rains montbretia lifts the gloom.

Beneath a spreading palm, close by the creek,
a message on a tablet to embrace
and reason why this couple chose to stay —
in simple words it tells they “Loved this Place.”

* The Rev. Humfrey Davis laid out quotations from 55 religious texts
On either side of the main path.

SWALLOWS

Checking old diaries to verify some past events,
I came across an entry from a long-forgotten day :
“Swallows return,” it notes…
This year, I’ve not seen one.

Back then, that distant year, I saw them leave,
flocked birds — this district’s congregation —
stringing phone wires like beads, then breaking rank,
they’d take short flights in ones and twos
to a soundtrack of mass twittering…
Rushing to fetch my camera, I returned to empty wires.

From the rise above the house, I look over empty skies;
swallows’ demise matching changes to our scene
with horses, meadows, paddocks now all past
acres of crops, hedgerows lost, farmland to developers.
So, with each change, year on year, swallows’ visits died.

At Roseland, Cornwall in St. Just’s Lych Gate
and at the N.T. loos near Towan Beach,
swallows fly close above our heads
to tweeting cups of mud and straw and faces of their young.

EDDIE’S SONG

Falling asleep on a friendly lap
while the sun shone through the trees,
I dreamt the dream of a tired cat
on a summer’s day so sweet :

with sky the blue of a kitten’s eye,
breeze like a purr in the leaves,
I slipped away on this perfect day
to find some peace in the shade.

Look out for me in the morning mist,
in shadows under the trees;
I am the sun that shines on your face,
I am the air that you breathe.

FEAST of the FLOWERS
(Protomagia)

Ribboned garlands in the village
on the tiny white-washed houses,
over doorways, over windows,
made from “everlasting” flowers.

Delicate with violet petals,
gathered from the rocky headlands
where they grow in wild profusion
near red poppies, yellow spartas.

Cut, the poppies lose their petals,
spartas wither, lose their fragrance,
only “everlasting” flowers
last from May Day into June.

All the garlands are collected
on the feast of John the Baptist
heaped together, set on fire,
a votive blaze as summer flares.

Naoussa, Paros, Greece

On June 24th 1914 Edward Thomas was travelling on the
Great Western train from Paddington to Malvern. Thomas
recorded in his Field Notebook 80 that at 12.45 pm the
train made an unscheduled stop at the little village of
Adlestrop… His record of this journey was immortalized
in his famous poem...

ADLESTROP

Yes. I remember Adlestrop—
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop—only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

But was the station truly deserted?

AT ADLESTROP?
(June 24th. 1914, 12:45)

The old man always said that he was there —
unseen small boy just sitting in the shade.
True, no one came or went as poet claimed —
that hissing train held briefly at this stop.
Midsummer Day, that early afternoon,
those Summer signs — end of era captured;
the poet peered from carriage of his train,
he and the boy entranced by blackbird’s song.

Patrick Osada

Like many who have read Thomas’s famous poem,
I took the opportunity to visit Adlestrop… this is
what I found.

ADLESTROP AGAIN

Travelling across country in the rain
I passed the sign for Adlestrop and, in
that moment, chose to turn and turn again
to follow down that twisting country lane.
I held an image in my mind of June,
Nineteen Fourteen, and wondered what I'd find,
what echoes of the scene you had described.

Trains pass the village but the station's gone :
saved from your time, only the name survives.
Beneath dripping oak, inside the shelter
where travellers wait a sporadic bus :
ADLESTROP in Great Western's brown and cream;
a bench marked G.W.R, preserved
beneath the station's name, bearing your verse.

I stopped and parked my car. Dodging the rain
I sheltered with these relics of the past
(incongruously lodged) to read your lines
in silence from neat plaque.........Not one bird sang,
still no one left and no one came that way.
So I drove on as skies grew mistier
through rains of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

Patrick Osada