Clive Bennett

They were awful years. Working in a 9-5 office job ripped the heart and soul out of me. As someone born of the outdoors – the claustrophobic spaces, the bright lights the noise and people, so many people – was unbearable! When I could, I would bunk off and go for long walks across the fields, or up on the hills and downs, with Richard Jefferies my guide and companion. And think thoughts.

“Stepping up the hill laboriously, suddenly a lark starts into the light and pours forth a rain of unwearied notes overhead. With bright light, and sunshine, and sunrise, and blue skies the bird is so associated in the mind, that even to see him in the frosty days of winter, at least assures us that summer will certainly return.”

(Out of Doors in February – Richard Jefferies 1882)

up on the downs a skylark takes me higher

Sometimes, in late summer or early autumn, I’d stay up on the downs and watch the stars appear, one by one – mirrored by the cottage lights in the valley far below …

It was a strange feeling – like being between two worlds – a childlike feeling of wonder and awe at the infinity of the night sky, yet comforted and reassured by the human presence below. The curlew’s call a portal between the two.

lights twinkle
in darkening skies
a curlew’s cry

But in spring and early summer, still waking with the birds, even on a work day, I would walk across the fields to the river … listening to the birdsong. Neither night nor day, there was a tangible change in the air and an imperceptible, almost subliminal lightening of the sky.

The blackbird’s whistle is very human, like a human being playing the flute; an uncertain player, now drawing forth a bar of a beautiful melody and then losing it again. He does not know what quiver or what turn his note will take before it ends; the note leads him and completes itself. It is a song which strives to express the singer’s keen delight, the singer’s exquisite appreciation of the loveliness of the days; the golden glory of the meadow, the light, the luxurious shadows, the indolent clouds reclining on their azure couch. … Now and again the blackbird feels the beauty of the time, the large white daisy stars, the grass with yellow-dusted tips, the air which comes so softly unperceived by any precedent rustle of the hedge, the water which runs slower, held awhile by rootlet, flag, and forget-me-not. He feels the beauty of the time and he must say it. His notes come like wild flowers, not sown in order. The sunshine opens and shuts the stops of his instrument

(From Jefferies’ essay ‘The Coming of Summer’)

sunny days tease a blackbird’s song

And on weekends I would roam the fields, woods and water-meadows, all the day long, as I did when a child.

‘Butterflies flutter over the mowing grass, hardly clearing the bennets. Many multi-coloured insects creep up the sorrel stems and take wing from the summit. Everything gives forth a sound of life. The twittering of swallows from above, the song of greenfinches in the trees, the rustle of hawthorn sprays moving under the weight of tiny creatures, the buzz upon the breeze; the very flutter of the butterflies’ wings, noiseless as it is, and the wavy movement of the heated air across the field cause a sense of motion and of music.’

(An extract from Jefferies’ essay, ‘Woodlands’, from ‘Nature Near London’)

a warm wind across the meadows the hum of bees

Now, many many years later, happily married (I met my darling wife through work so it can’t have been all bad) with grown up kids, my walks and introspection, have been, and continue to be, a rich source for my haiku.

Why don’t you join me some fine morning – or at least poke your head outdoors and listen, just for a moment, to the birds … waking up.