by Tony Farnden
Hills encircle this place.
Look as you turn clockwise
and count them off as you go.
Start with the sea to the east.
There's Langdon Hill, all dark conifers.
Dark shadows and dark hearts
will be met if you leave its paths
and venture far beneath.
Next is Golden Cap,
sea cut but telling of an older place;
step off its summit in your dreams
and follow faery tracks into some fair vale,
long since gone to a watery grave.
Turn again and Stonebarrow Hill comes into view.
Even from here your skin prickles at the touch
of chill fingers of the wind or something unseen.
Who is it lies beneath the sward?
Sidhe kings and queens of some long lost kingdom?
If lost it be.
Turn on.
Thistle Hill with Conegar standing on its own in front,
orphaned and empty of all that still wakes at dawn.
Next is Wootton Hill peeking
from behind Coney's Castle.
Then on to the steep scarps of Lambert's Castle,
Sliding Hill and, a bare peak standing out,
Pilsden Pen, against wooded Lewsden.
Old forts for humankind
ringed with birch, holly and oak
vying with hazel and thorn for hearts and souls,
be they of Faery or Adam's.
Move on through the last quarter
to Copper Hill then Jan's and Henwood.
Colmer's peaking out and showing the way east from here.
Finally comes Quarry Hill.
All these speaking of the work's of humankind
but who's to say under whose influence,
before Langdon swings back into view.
Hills all in the round as seen from this point
like some charm necklace to keep the magic in.
Or is it out?
Salt Kisses
I taste salt, West Wind.
Whose kisses are you sharing?
The queen of the sea's?
From some sea nymph's lips?
Pause a moment, take some tears
from the sea in me.
Carry them away
and share them with some lover
waiting for your kiss.
(February 5, 2014)
Trees
Up here on the hill top,
the broad expanse is home to many lores.
Home to many vegetable hearts:
heather and furze,
moor grass and fir
bramble and woodbine,
pink centaury and tricoloured eyebright,
milkwort, or bright Freya's Hair, and bluebell,
bedstraw and speedwells,
fairy's hair and cowslips,
violet and St John's Wort.
It remains protected still,
though once home,
in more recent times, to
men with picks and shovels
as well as the resting place of ancient ones.
Trees grow stunted from the wind;
birch, some fractal with witches brooms,
crab and hazel,
rowan and oak wrapped with ivy,
beech and holly.
encircle and keep the other ones out.
Lower down ancient giants,
hollies and oaks,
reach up and out, a palisade
keeping these faeries away.
While willow and elder vie
with thorns, black and haw,
wrapped in a muddle of conflict,
offering mute support to such fair ones.
Who listens to their whispers now,
when the wind moves through the branches?
Lizards and snakes?
Badgers and foxes?
Buzzards and ravens?
Not one, but the story has not yet ended
and not all sleep their final sleep.
Cogden Beach, Dorset
This winter's storms have transformed
the nature of this place, ripping up
and rolling back the reefs of sea kale
from the shingle ridge, roots left like tentacles,
and sending waves of shingle right
to the brackish pools but stopping on the brink.
The grasses look combed roughly back
by some angry and brutal parent.
In places, orange roots create a loose net
like some kind of under sea worms, washed up dead.
Sea campions, thrift and sea beets are stripped away
along with the nest sites of the terns and more.
Nearer the sea, a dark tide mark tells another darker story
not seen by me before, sea weed ripped by the root
from some far bed, a lobster pot joins them.
Cuttlefish bones punctuate the beach as usual
but not so the corpses of razorbills, like flood victims
caught up in the roots of fallen trees.
Breasts so white and near perfect they lie
as if they have fallen asleep while waiting
for a loved one to return home from the sea,
only to find they are the lost returned to some far shore.
I cannot count beyond fifty as my heart is so chilled
I feel I will fade and blow away like tears in the wind and spray.
(February 23, 2014)
Winter into Spring
Spring is tiptoeing into view
while Winter still cannot make up its mind.
Elder and woodbine have opened their first leaves
and primroses bring the sun down to ground.
Hazel catkins continue to shed their pollen
in a hope the wind will not take them
on some mad sky ride to Neverland.
All around others swell their buds in hope.
White willows dazzle like amber clouds.
Even oaks take a chance and bronze their tips,
and birch grow little fat fingers
to play a tune upon the breeze.
Ash buds expand like beads of jet
getting ready to explode into flower.
Ivy, still glossy and green, flowers and fruits
while others are barely awake.
Blades, spears and arrowheads wave above the ground,
a peasant revolt in miniature, as dog's mercury,
bluebell, ransoms and arums spill leaves out into the light
before the ferns unreel their croziers to hold them back.
Pink campions and herb robert have yet to sleep,
as they are joined by early celandine,
dandelions and, so very early this year by far,
the nodding heads of wild daffodils.
(March 28, 2014)
Green Heart
I look out onto hills and wonder
why this place calls to me so.
I've spoken of fairies
and of the magic of this jewel of a place,
this green heart of the kingdom,
but is that mere conceit,
just poetic licence,
or does it ring truer than I knew?
Such magic does not reside just here.
It dwells throughout their realm
and I will find it wherever I travel
as its blood now flows in my veins.
I am ever the changeling,
a hobbledehoy woven out of green wood,
a mere scion budded onto a hazel wand,
bowing to the wind.
I will plant the seeds of this knowledge
gifted me, where I next stop,
and nurture them with the songs
and stories learned here.
You will find me
where the West Wind blows,
cradling sweet flowers in my arms,
come next Spring.
&
nbsp; Dorset the Fae
Dorset the Fae
Dorset the Fair
I am pulling back.
Don't you see I must to just
survive my leaving.
A third of my life
I've shared with you and your kind.
Will you let me go?
Will I let you go
or must I steal you away,
leave a green changeling
in your place, your crib?
Will fairies move to stop me
or nod, look away?
No, we will part, go
our separate ways for now.
In dreams I will walk
your paths, climb your hills
while this old sad heart does beat
and life holds me fast.
The Long Hour Glass
The sand falls slowly
counting down the long seconds
that stretch still ahead.
Must be fairy dust
mixed in to make each grain ring
as they strike the heap,
mountain miniature
below, sparkling and sparking
with Annwn's magic,
fairy voices all
chiming like soft silver bells,
full sweet laughter.
Second to minutes,
minutes to hours, hours to days;
a month then no more
but forever more,
for good or for bad, twisted
into a circlet
worn by a fae queen
or her mate, some fairy prince,
welcoming us on.
(Annwyn - pronounced Anoon - the Otherworld, the Land of Shadow ruled by fae King Arawn)
About the author:
I am Tony Farnden and I would like to think I am a poet, an author and a humanist. I am publishing this work which was developed on Wattpad under my Wattpad name of Uccello.
Discover other title by Tony Farnden
This is currently my second published work, the first being 'Dragon Love' but here are some up and coming stories:
Another Song: Air Song (first in a sequence of at least three - Earth Song, Air Song and Water Song)
The Multiplicity of Being (parallel / alternative take on Dragon Love) - this is finished but needs formatting for publication. I'd better get a move on.
Connect with me:
At Wattpad: Uccello
