visit Leila Dawney november 29

visit Marenka December 7

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

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?

a chorus of cobwebs for my mother's birthday

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

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

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


leading to a landscape

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

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

September 26

September 25

september 24

new mown september 20

new acorn old wood

Compost loos and shower return

September 18

Raymond Matta & Raphael at Bunces september 16

September 16

september 15

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

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

Battle Art Group visiting Bunces Barn August 9

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

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

Kathryn & Naomi River of Flowers visit

May 5
orchestras of rain
shifting on different grasses,stones, pond, nettles, leaves
and the oak's leaves sprouted black against the night sky

april 6

pink dusk
a lone pheasant, no, another
sore- throated birds
a coughing cow
a magpie off behind white blossom
on a cherry that was only in bud six days ago

stinging nettles curling in for the evening

lifted lid of pink against mauve cloud low on tree top tips

newts gaggle in the stalky pond

gracious sun and first butterflies
yellow and brown
water as bright as silver foil
nettles bite with fresh venom of spring and heat
and one's life rejoices
just for the day

it is quiet
insects, sleeping birds, a few insects hitting the sides of the barn
a himmer of things miraging up
colours bleach in the light
and I choose shadow

glance up
a magpie's white wing tips slide sideways
into the small leaved as yet ungreen trees
like a flicker
it is so hot