77/2023

At the confluence of her souls and forests,
This magic sacred circle of hers, she feels
The familiar pain as the trees shrink away
From the encroaching world, felled as much
By ignorance as disease.

She sets to work as she does each cycle,
Wills the oldest cadavers at the edge of her
Land to sprout new arms, branches, wings,
To rise into the sky as ancient trees already
Made from the fruits of her endless labour.

R 18/03/2023 17:35

A friend messaged me to say she couldn’t make sense of these recent poems, and was the goddess of the wood evil? No, she’s not; she’s the embodiment of women rising up against the patriarchy.

The words were running round my head for my whole 65-minute walk across the alarmingly water-logged fields (note to world – think about water wastage first, then you might conclude we don’t need constant flooding rain), sending me off down some blind alleys that didn’t suit her at all, and down others that were just male gaze-ing and useless, until the above formed just about five minutes from home.

Other things – annoying technology, control freakery, irritation at the dreadful weather, awe at how the medlar trees have overcome the hot and dry summer and are shooting out their new blooms at about half an inch a day. The relentlessness of domestic tasks and how much I really hate them. The miserable old man stomping along the pavement (with his miserable old dog) who, when greeted by me and a doff of my cap, responded with such a beatific smile and an “Oh! Good afternoon indeed,” that my heart jumped for joy, and the sadness of his situation lodged in that jumping organ. How my every other thought is in German since I started reading Remarque – whether that’s a sign of malleability or talent I don’t really know. Mind you, who cares? It’s good to be able to talk myself in more than one language.