Sunday 14 July 2013

july 14

heat leaves an itch
sunset leaves a glow globe
just above the low trees
my eys squint
I take thistles, nettles, scratches as I low lie
its in the thoes of cvergrow
heavy with heat
quite still as if the air has stopped breathing

Sunday 30 June 2013

june 30

black shadowed oak filled in with leaves so sky becomes the rare
talking of innumerable grasses leaning and busking with their different rhythms in a circling breeze some caught buttercups adding the yellow, lower cloves and denser grasses this untamed orchestra choreographed by wind reverberating with gesture leads on to the water just some white light in the green mud vegetation
pillow of grass clover and closer pink and cream yellow and green, dust and yellow just go

Monday 6 May 2013

may 4

jumped a month and jumped a fire
explosion of abundant nettles
green dark against green bright solid and strong lined
cherry blossom overfows and was not here 5 days ago
leaves still in their smallness
loud cries helter skeltering around, drill of a duck

may 4


P5043845.JPG, originally uploaded by Clare Whistler.

Sunday 28 April 2013

P4283816.JPG


P4283816.JPG, originally uploaded by Clare Whistler.

april 28

so many roots that have followed on
some that fade out
some that blossom
some that give to others

countenoring of birdsong
white blossom exista airbourne as stems disappear in this light
few leaves but their promise
stinging nettles glorious in their abundant green
a great stir of beauty

stretched clouds
sun in clouds of waves

Monday 1 April 2013



april 1 2013 with cairn

its always sound first-
stirring wind that wipes the face and buffoons and bubbles across the air, the pull back and push, tide-like deepening and flittering with catkin drumming
empty branches at field bottom roar like soft gongs
it could all be different cars, lorries, planes but right now it is all made by breeze layering in among the beginnings of leafed trees - high spot hums with sun, tremendous roar of the holly trees high winds ruptures it
even gate shocks as it clatters back
I am here with cairn and he is using the net finding dead frogspawn and not much, it is the coldest easter on record - I hope it all limps back to life
my son, MY son, sits in the ruins of his great great great uncle's farmhouse and the ancestory becomes live - I somehow thought it was amazing to end with me but seeing him there, near the beehives I see that ancient history, family history, can hold him too when he is lost,

Saturday 2 March 2013

Friday 1 March 2013

a mad march hare dash up to the barn for the first day of the month
to gather, regather,undo, well up, release, reangle,rearrange, rough up, ramble
take in pre spring
purple edges on silver birches
dark din of conifer plantation
catkin kiss and stipple
lichen tipping and holding to hawthorn tree
its main season before bud, leaf, bird
like misty bobbles, ghost christmas decorations, pompoms
cut marsh reeds
bracken bramble leans the hedge over
the oak is maybe no longer so young as I watch it for a 5th year
it is one of my compasses
grey of course but light drifting through clouds
black dot swallows
and the grass is so green
I am sitting here with a blade
while my piece of green ribbon is in Munich trying to live!

Sunday 17 February 2013

I have thorns in my hair, I just combed into them going up a steep bank
every step haloed
no thorn crowned
the last hawthron outer edging coming away
sometimes if you go with undetermined softness you get through hurdles

why is my heart so thumping
that could be poetry but its medical and slightly sick making
overdrive
lay down to earth
recover the right pace
please

Saturday 2 February 2013

feb 2 2013 first visit this year

back from Canada
a bright but bared day, everything is hunkered down and smooth - water flatened
after floods and snow, sodden ground
bricks have been moved from the old oast ruin to the entry of the pond, placed like castle building, or a drains mechanism, some are lain across the road, maybe to stop cars getting stuck
all looks wintered and shadowed and fine line drawn
only I share that its great to be back and homed

Friday 9 November 2012

nov 9

I have only my eyes to etch this emptying tree
black against the blue
holding its last leafbirds
a week ago I streamed
 and now over this running puddle a red unexpected dragonfly
water piles around the roots of woods as if it is ground
flat flood of reflection
and who has just told me less is more
and yet
and yet
it is all more
my bootlace has undone and I am walking with a strange stride
wanting to keep moving like the leaves running along the road
not stop to repair
I have a loose foot
a leaf dropped on my writing hand but fell away
I mouth my regret aaah
I wasn't even looking for one
though I liked the good luck
these falling leaves olden days promises
a raft of paper leaves make huge white noise
I could fall to the sun- reflected stream
let go, thirty feet of falling
and then cold, bruises, scratches
a frozen shriek
I need my witness
the reddest leaf
emeralded with depth
I want to take it home and love it
place it on display
practice obeiance
my eyes go straight to pen
glad the beheaded deer is gone
the wire line still cuts into the young oak it was hung on
and the carcass has disappeared
as I walked the small plane overhead circled
where I circled a week ago
learning to fly is a pull to air
a fatal wish for the unboundaried
unfettered freedom
the big view
atmosphere
the element I fly in
I am that bundle of balloons filled with helium
ready to go
and these nearly tied boots hold me down
but its getting looser
and I don't know what it means
its not going through the door
its not thresholding
its almost dissolving
a death into elemental being
I am weathering myself
to hold weather
to be weather
to flow weather

its too bright
yet soggy feet
I tie up the shoelace
it undoes
my red leaf is in the shade
on the way back
as I approach home
my other boot unlaces
I could step out of it right now
and be socked

Monday 29 October 2012

october 28

its been a while...
striking
why is there a carcass of a beheaded deer hanging from the young oak tree
someone's food
held by twine to its knees no rest of legs
stomach against the trunk
arms to elbows only
from here the sides are brown and fawn, white and beige but around the neck is the dark red of the inner lining
the inner lining of us all and always more graphic that expected
just under the skin
is it a trophy
an explanation for foraging, a liver on the land living on the land
but why here
was it a day of how to kill and hang venison
is it protection
an ancient symbol of fertilisation
a sacrifice
a shamanic totem
an autumnal death?

Thursday 11 October 2012



still
loud shot
shock

had seen a black car but presumed walkers

that was an intent to kill shot

trees stay stiller
birds lower sound discreetly
fly off in sideways directions
as if avoiding main roads

moisture holds the ground together
sky eye colour gray
depth lightness

no one has appeared to claim the shot
and birds reclaim with gentle leaves
the space

one shot
no more

held
this place is held in a weather blip

then breeze drawing attention to hazel uprights, then some sorrel, one large tree across the field
and then all still
except a flashing swallow
a single bramble
two stinging nettles
wind picks out its own
a story of wind currents

I walk home
the black car still waits
and I wonder if the shot was the end of a life
not animal
and wait

Thursday 4 October 2012

Wednesday 3 October 2012

straight down rain starts
more puddles
rain straight down taking the small leaves
rain with falling leaves
rain made form

Tuesday 2 October 2012

there is a gate I always open
and I think I know who likes it closed
the gate goes nowhere


leading to a landscape

Monday 1 October 2012

Friday 28 September 2012


september 28

tractor din, duck
voice like warm ice slides over my ear from an insistent bird
climbing tractor
see-saw of high pitched joy of a laughing crow
go

Thursday 27 September 2012




september 27


september 27

two birds meeting on the hawthron
click wings and separate
with a moth-like flutter and whizz

bird noise low
swing, flute and muster
just air
call and drone, tick off and rattle
tinker and tap, whimper and type

Wednesday 26 September 2012

Sunday 23 September 2012

Thursday 20 September 2012

Wednesday 19 September 2012

Sunday 16 September 2012

Sunday 19 August 2012

From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity.
 Edvard Munch

Monday 13 August 2012


such terrible missing

airplane hoover, duck scrap,pigeon rumble,
creak grass,insect tick,magpie rattle
or was it pheasant,
fly beat,hum bug,camera turn off,
really loud tick from the pond
four times as loud as my swatch watch and its loud
harsh call, clipped, a duck

august 13

Thursday 9 August 2012

Battle Art Group visiting Bunces Barn August 9

Tuesday 7 August 2012




august 7 overgrown nettles,yarrow,sorrel,clover,docks,marsh thistle everything strangling each other as sun takes colour away it has the edge of autumn oaks yellowing before time there is more for the wind to rustle inside and out overgrowth I know it is time yet the heart yearns and treasures and grieves

Monday 23 July 2012

flocks of grass mist,wiggle and shard on my eyeline nettle sorrel wars and leaning heads frothy as whipped cream multitudinous dull colours picked out by sun aching towards it ,no not aching, not rising spreading towards it spilling into untidy space a cabbage white suddenly two now gone a wing like a petal of bindweed a young fox leisurely strolls by me I am contained in another air current a white tip to his tail slips into the hedge he never saw me another gratitude

Sunday 27 May 2012