Writing in Lockdown.

This time of lock-down has come to visceral life for me when I turn the pages of some of the hundred notebooks on my shelves as I look out of my window at the green of my garden and my ancient trees.

These days I am more conscious than ever of the birds, both in my trees and up in the sky: enticing images of freedom now as I see and hear them in my confinement.

In one of my notebooks I found this poem called The Birds written in 2002 about the different world inhabited by birds. These days I think I took for granted their sense of  freedom.  

Now I have resurrected re-read this poem  again and have  polished it just a bit.

Here it is.

The Birds

A line of birds scratches its way

across the gunmetal grey

of an April afternoon.

Its waivering form begins

to evolve

into a double V.

Their direction is North.

They discover their way by

following their inner tick

and escaping the sultry fog

of unseasonable warmth

above the surging bulbs.

Original version 29^th December 2002

Polished April 2020

Poems in lock-down, 'the tramp-tramp of mercenary feet...'

In my last post I wrote about my trees, with my eye sharpened through lock-down. Another lock-down preoccupation has been making my way through hundreds of the notebooks which are the roots of all my writing 

And I found this poem – also called Trees – in the October 2002 notebook.

The poems  are similar, but  as you will notice, different. This one alludes, I now see, to the Roman occupation of the North. I recall now that I was also, at the time, writing my novel The Pathfinder which is set in post Roman Britain.

Here you are: 

Trees

Green light drips onto sooty bark.

The white sun forges pathways

onto petals of yellow aconite

spotlighting chunky bluebells

awakened from their ancient bulbs.

Raw branches push outwards and up

escaping the broad  trunk -

a descendent of the ancient woodland

rooted here predating the existence of

 the whole  town, the main street. 

That straight road still echoes with

the tramp-tramp of mercenary feet

pacing the land, holding it in thrall

for an emperor lounging now

 in glimmering Mediterranean light.

Now this child walks through the trees

trailing her hand on the roughened bark. 

She puts her face to the sky and savours

the pearls of rain that drop from her

round row into  her closed eye.

Three Sisters - Trees From My Window

Like so many people in this lock-down emergency I have found it hard to concentrate on my normal creative pattern of reading and writing. The public dilemma tends to bleed one of both emotional and physical energy.

But finally, finally I have begun to write again, inspired by this semi imprisoned situation – liberated by looking out of my big bay window.

Thing are different now aren’t they? I have abandoned my little writing room upstairs and also my bigger office downstairs and retreated to the single writing table inside the bay window on the sunny side of the house. This is always a favourite place.

From here I can see the overgrown lawn and the over-sprouting shrubs - suffering from enforced neglected throughout this lockdown. But more important than this I can see the trees all around this garden which – when the house was built 150 years ago - was a piece of ancient woodland belonging to the Dean and Chapter – the office of the Bishop of Durham.

So, relishing an escape from interminable domestic commitments, I have spent my lock-down at my table writing, supervised by the hares who act as my quality controllers. They are mad March hares. It certainly has been a mad March, hasn’t it?

Locked down here I have become obsessed with the movement and identity of my ancient trees.
So here is my first completed work in progress -   a short-line pieces called 

  Three Sisters

 With fluttering leaf-fingers

and nobbly branch-elbows

three lanky sisters stand

side by side,  elbow to elbow,

nodding their heads and

gently touching each other,

relishing the ever present chime of birdsong.

 

Their ancient brothers,

high as the house,

stride the steep bank

unimpeded by ivy.

Tangled up, overgrown -

their thick trunks are

embroidered with wild, wandering creepers.

Ankle-deep in the skeletons of

five-year-old leaves, the pathways

wind between the trees. And

bluebells, spawned by ancient bulbs,

blunt-nose their way between the

roots of ancient colonising trees -

 a deep blue glimpse through

the veil of filtered sunlight.

Outside my window

three lanky sisters

stand side by side.

Wendy Robertson. May 2020 

 

  

 Keep Safe, keep well Wx