Distant Hills
My haiku put to music …
distant hills …
beyond the gate
winter stillness
… from my rocking chair
A collection of my published short form poetry (2019-2023), set to music and birdsong.
My chief delight is in nature, and when I read a book, or look at a painting, it is to find something about nature in it. So it is with writing, where I try to express the feeling engendered by nature which is, to me, the most important thing in life (After W H Hudson – ‘Afoot in England’ – 1909).
Mostly I write and blog about, well about birds. So it seemed natural that when I first started writing haiku (early 2019), they were also about birds … taking inspiration from nature, but also from paintings of birds, their songs, and from the nature writings and essays of some of our greatest nature writers and poets—insightful reflections of birds—in art and anecdote, poetry and prose.
Under the Covers
waking up
… next to you
waking up
we snuggle back down
under the covers
Hidden
Hidden
I turned the page.
[…] “‘I have amazing news for you – and indeed for every bird-lover in the country,’”he whispered. […]
found again
It was my first day at Junior (Primary) school and I had picked a book to read, from the library shelves.
“Bennett! What are you doing ?”
“Reading, Miss” (I hadn’t heard the Headmistress come into class). “We were told to”, Miss.
“What have I been talking about?”
“Dunno, Miss.”
“Come here!” (six raps on the knuckles for not paying attention and six more for answering back). “Write out, in your best handwriting, ‘I must not read in class’. Twelve times!”
Did she know that my writing was awful. I could read, and spell almost anything, but write – I couldn’t write for toffee.
She kept the book.
I returned to my desk and stared out the window; a Green Woodpecker flew up into the trees bordering the grounds of the old Rectory. Overgrown and unkempt – a place of mystery and adventure. …
a secret garden
We turned the page.
[…] “‘As I suspected, the birds you saw and which I have been watching for fifteen minutes are Bee-eater.’”[…]
My son finally asleep, I stared out the window towards the blue line of distant hills. Thoughtfully, I put the book back on his bedroom shelves.
my childhood
Originally Published in the Blo͞o Outlier Journal Issue #2 Summer 2021
—————-
found again
… a secret garden
my childhood
A Day in the Life
A Day in the Life
daydreaming
morning assembly
sparrows chattering
in the playground
waiting for the bus
sparrows swirl
around the square …
another leaf falls
my piano tutor
sparrow song
under the eaves …
brahms lullaby
Shades of Green
Let’s go for a walk; a walk around your local wood or park. It’s early morning and there’s only you and maybe one or two dog walkers about. The grass is still wet with dew. You follow a pathway through the bluebells. There’s hardly a sound. Weak sunshine filters through the branches. You breathe the fresh air – and smell the scent of pine trees. Presently you come to a small clearing; The air is cool, but comfortable. You pause for a moment. The leaves on the trees shift and sway in the gentle breeze making a moving dappled pattern on the ground before you. The sun warms your face. Your eyes close …
Continue your walk and listen, really listen – you hear the sounds of the day waking up; and birds singing. Just a few at first then more birds as you tune in. You are surrounded by birdsong. What birds do you hear – perhaps a Song Thrush, a Willow Warbler and isn’t that a Wren. What you hear is down to you as you add in some of your favourite birdsongs to the mix. Play them together, yes together (a nifty quirk of WordPress). Create your own soundscape …
Enjoy your walk!
Sultry Winds
A Shahai (Photo Haiku)
The Wiltshire Downs from Liddington Castle - 1892 (prepared for publication by Miss Bertha Newcombe) from the book by H S Salt - Richard Jefferies A Study (1894)
sultry winds
sweeping the hill
a kestrel’s cry
First Published in the July edition of Scarlet Dragonfly Journal (Kathleen Trocmet)
For me the addition of the haiku really pulls me into the picture making it come alive – the haiku itself positioned where the kestrel would be hovering above the stooks.
Here is the extract from which this haiku was derived …
[…]Presently a small swift shadow passes across—it is that of a hawk flying low over the hill. He skirts it for some distance, and then shoots out into the air, comes back half-way, and hangs over the fallow below, where there is a small rick. His wings vibrate, striking the air downwards, and only slightly backwards, the tail depressed counteracting the inclination to glide forwards for awhile. In a few moments he slips, as it were, from his balance, but brings, himself up again in a few yards, turning a curve so as to still hover above the rick.[…]
An extract from ‘Wildlife in a Southern County’ (Originally published in 1879) – his essays of happier times in the hills and vales of the Wessex Downs …
Dusk Settles
Nightfall
In the last rays of the setting sun the hills glow golden brown. There is a loud though distant clamour of Rooks and ‘Daws.
A Blackbird chinks from deep within the understory while a Barn Owl ghosts the edge of the wood. Yet it is still not-quite-dark; the sky to the west a faint wash of blue, tinged orange-pink. …
first stars ...
parlour lights twinkle
across the vale
A Perfect Day
Washday Blues
I woke with a start; It’s 6am! Damn, I overslept. I never oversleep. Well only sometimes. Ever since I can remember I’ve woken around dawn, as those first rays of light peek around the edge of the curtains and slide under the door.
I stumble downstairs, making it to the back door first (quite a feat this), without tripping over the dogs and cats scrapping for poll position. The cats always win – they streak out – the dogs following like greyhounds out of the traps. All in good fun!
Silence! Only an odd Woodpigeon coo-cooing in the distant wood and the squawk of a startled pheasant.
A pale moon hangs above the old hill-fort. The cerulean-blue sky crisscrossed with misty white contrails – a new day, a new canvas; paint thrown casually from the artists brush …
hanging out
our winter woolies
first swift