Bird flying high

You know how I feel

Ah, stuff it.

It’s a kite.

The bugger doesn’t have a clue 

how I feel.

It’s up there, cruising the joint,

looking for anything half dead

it can have for its tea.

If it’s looking down on me at all,

it’s wondering whether 

it can aim a shit right into my eye

As for Vaughn Williams,

that bloody lark takes

about 16 minutes to get

up there.

Have you seen a lark,

or heard one?

It takes a lot less time than that 

to get to its flappy place.

It can hang up there

for as long as it likes,

but ascending in 16 minutes?

Give me a break.

Then McCartney makes much

of a blackbird,

singing in the dead of night.

Well, only if it was sitting 

under a sodium streetlight 

and feeling very confused.

Morning, yes.  Evening, yes.

Night-time, pubs closing…

It ought to have been tucked up

somewhere else.

OOO

I’ve got one that lives near my veg garden.

It sings out sweet obscenities at me.

The game we play is this:

He sings a line

I sing back.

He sings a more complicated line

I sing back.

He goes full orchestral

I lose, he wins.

Bird song falls into two general genres:

My patch  fuck off,

or, fancy a shag?

Goodness only knows 

what the nightingale was singing

in Berkeley Square.

OOO

It’s taken us dumb humans

A long time to work out how birds fly.

Something to do with body weight, 

aerodynamics and thrust.

This was well explained in 

Chicken Run.

It’s all about thrust

…and not having clipped wings, you hens.

Icarus gave it a good go, 

though only his dad was watching.

Icky-boy hadn’t listened 

to advice about 

beeswaxed wings.

Nor the observation

about him

not being a bird.

The body weight to wing ratio thingy

must differentiate

the darters from the snatchers,

the hop-alongs from the cruisers.

The incentive is dinner.

All birds are stomachs

on wings.

OOO

Have you ever wondered 

where birds go to die?

Why aren’t we constantly

stepping over dead bluetits?

Or crunching our cars over

desiccated raptors?

Is there a trap door

at the peak of the Skirrid?

A bird Valhalla

into which they all must ascend?

I had a budgie once.

My mother sprayed the room

with fly spray and killed it.

Sad that.

I noticed the Queen Mother wave you gave from your 4x4 Jaguar as you squeezed me into the hedge  

Did I mind? Yes.

What are you doing here?  This is the land of battered pick-ups and tractors. I bet you don’t carry dead livestock in the back of that thing, do you?  Or a bag of cement?  Or a reel of sheep wire. Nope.

Did you slow down before you took the bend, thinking you might just scratch your car on the hedge?  No.  It was me that landed in the hedge, not your car. I doubt that running someone over was at all in your mind.  Yours is a Jag.  You rule the road.

And hasn’t anyone taught you how to wave properly? The lower arm/elbow pivot thing is so last century.  You could have put your arm to better uses, like winding down the window to apologise.

Do you know what people around here do when they spin someone into the hedge?  They wind down the window and talk to them. We’re a chatty bunch around here.  A driver’s window to pedestrian conversation is not uncommon.  

What do we talk about? Well, sometimes it’s a quick catch-up about lambing or fundraising for the village defibrillator.  Sometimes it’s a shared moan about rugby, or the weather.  

Sometimes it’s gossip, like who has knocked down Marlene’s wall, again.  And sometimes it’s an ‘are you ok’  ‘sorry about that’ ‘just on my way to…’

But you couldn’t manage that.  Your fucking Jaguar is OK and I’m not.  You’ve ignited all my prejudices and I am stuck with them for the rest of the day.

It’s ok to wear odd socks.

You CAN go to see a film on your own.

If you’re going to an exercise class, don’t forget the Tena pad.

Living alone with cats is easier than living with a sociopath.

All jeans should have elasticated waists.  Ditto skirts.

One-size clothing is to be welcomed.

Having a shed is a revelation.

Growing things is cool.

The battle against cabbage whites is unwinnable.

Wine tastes less good, unless it’s expensive.

Men your age prefer to date women 20 years their junior.

Men your age looked better 20 years ago.

Many things are far more enjoyable than driving a car

Your age prevents you from hiring a car.  Other over-70 exclusions will be equally resented.

You can get as far as page 50 before you realise you’ve read the book before.

You permit yourself to give up on a dull book by page 20.

A walking stick is a thing of beauty.

The older you  get, the more you hate the Tories.

Passions deepen on animal welfare.

Violations of human rights hurt more.

Your heart weeps for the environment.

You love Cymru.

Being an Auntie is a joy unbounded.

Families are both a  blessing and a sodding challenge.

Like it says on the fridge magnet, friends are the family you choose for yourself.

Real friends aleays stand by you, without judgement, when you need to throw-up, sleep, weep or have a good rant.

All friendships need nurturing.

All friends need space.

Some people respond poorly to sadness, so keep it under wraps.  

Be jolly, for Christ’s sake

Accept that regrets linger, because that’s what the bastards  do

Life moves on

So wear odd socks, preferably one  purple and one green.

New Year's Eve at Auntie Gin’s house was a regular feature of our year. Auntie Maud would make the mince pies, Auntie Hester the sausage rolls , Auntie Joan the fish paste sandwiches and Auntie Mary would bring the jugs of celery, hoping Auntie Kath hadn’t forgotten the salt and the chutney. Ham was down to Auntie Gin as the host.

 

The drinks were in the hands of Aunties Jane and Olwen because Aunty Jane made the best snowballs and Aunty Olwen was partial to sweet sherry and had a favourite brand.  The beer was left to Uncle James, but that’s another story, anyway the men would be in the front room and the women in the back, so it didn't matter too much.

 

Aunties Phil and Marion always gave Auntie Gin help getting the house ready.  It had to be spotless, of course.   Uncle James would get the coal in. They had no further expectations of him  beyond that.  In the meanwhile, Auntie Flo would go up and down the terrace borrowing plates, glasses and cutlery.  

 

Most years, unless it snowed,  we were up there by 7 pm.  Auntie Elsie said the weather was in the hands of God, so she prayed annually for clement weather.  She wouldn't want to miss it.  Auntie Eva confided that this was because she liked a drink or two.

 

While the men drank and sang in the front, the aunties would be telling stories in the back. We would grip every one, especially those by Aunties Florence, Elspeth and Agnes.   

 

But, we never saw the New Year in up there.  As soon as Auntie Gwen had had sufficient snowballs, knocked down with sweet sherry chasers, she would take to the piano.  This was a signal.  Aunties would send around a look and a nod, after which us kids were packed off home.

Any resemblance between my family and New Years up the Varteg is (only partially)  coincidental

Concerning the churchyard in May

Does a mountain begin or end 

where it touches the sky?

 

Can the kite leave ripples when it flies,

like a lazy hand stroking water?

 

Do the spirits of lost lovers

meet under the yew trees?

 

Did the land tremble and bleed

when cut for the first time?

 

Could it feel the placing of stone, 

on stone, on stone?

 

Did it hear the voices of the masons

laugh and swear through another day?

 

***

 

The land holds stories,

that it keeps to itself.

 

***

 

So too, inside the church,

are secrets untold

of prayers and promises.

 

Here the faithful met the faithless,

ordering their world in ritual,

fearing the consequences.

 

They worked the land with songs,

sung in an ancient language

 

Others gave orders, briskly spoken,

in the language of another.

 

They planted the hedgerows 

with knowledge of possession.

Here is mine, there is yours.

They made order out of hillside.

They tidied streams. 

Their livestock nodded.

 

Nature nodded back

with an arsenal of 

storm, snowdrifts, and draught.

Nature’s trump cards.

 

***

 

A few memories, in stone,

for souls departed from bodies 

whose wealth

secured an indoor spot.

 

18c. Christopher wanted 

either his own grave 

or to be near Blanch

 

His half blank stone

waits and weeps for her.

 

***

 

Outside are markers 

of ends and beginnings.

 

To the North, upright shiny sentinels,

tended for the remembered.

 

The much loved and sorely missed,

the born sleeping 

and the taken too soon.

 

To the East and South tipsy stones

for the forgotten and unreachable.

 

Ivy-clad and lichen-kissed, 

overcome with May’s abundance

and ivy’s ambition.

 

***

 

And where lie the masons,

the goodwives,

the hedge layer and the priest?

 

Too deep, too forgotten,

but present because 

the question is asked.

 

All laid out here (stone or not)

to face the East

and their judgement day.

 

Here lies a wife beater.

Here lies a brave woman.

Here lies a drunk.

Here lies a hero.

 

***

 

At the end, 

did their souls fly up 

to where the Skirrid 

touches the sky?

 

Did they pass the kites, 

on their way?

 

Did they wave a last goodbye,

rippling the air

like a hand stroking water?

 

Did they remember being 

young lovers, under the Yew trees?

The air is like stove-heated milk.

Not quite ready for hot chocolate

But warm enough.

I wade through it.

 

The breeze catches the air

and throws it in my face.

There to do little 

to comfort or relieve.

 

Above, the housemartins

race over their sky tracks.

Scooping their prizes

of late afternoon insects.

 

Below my feet the ground is sharp.

The remnants of May,

sliced down to stubble and waste.

Thick and unyielding

 

It’s farming country.

Knowing how to take a hay crop,

but not how to tend

a garden of graves.

 

I think about snoozing adders

and move to thinner places.

 

Unrecognised wildflowers.

Unrecognised butterflies.

Moths perhaps.

Each, a tickle in the grass

 

Purple something,

Yellow something,

Grey Flappy thingy.

 

I walk,

knowing I need 

a friend to name them,

so I can pretend

I know them too.

 

Six yew trees stand sentinel in the West.

One in the East.

Each charged long ago

with warding off all that is evil.

 

They must have been busy.

 

There are sinners here, 

lying with the saints,

but mostly here lies those

who did the best they could,

 

Inside the church,

the air is cool and damp. 

It smells of neglect,

of ancient times and lost purpose.

 

Fixed to the wall of a window recess

is Phillip Christopher’s memorial stone.

Died in 1763.

 

Perhaps he knew George 3 was king,

Maybe he knew that

things were falling apart in America,

and that India was being claimed

 

His memorial stone is half empty

Space for Blanche

He wanted to be near her.

So where is she?

 

I hunt outside.

 

This is where

the ‘best beloved’

become the soonest forgotten.

 

Lost in both time and mind

the ‘united forever’ are

submerged 

underneath thick ivy.

 

If lucky, the ‘sorely missed’

host iridescent lichen

and shine in the light.

 

I find an early stone

and pick away the ivy 

with my fingers.

It resists and fights me off.

 

Sufficient to read its message

‘prepare to meet thy God’

And to know that

 

Blanche isn’t here.