This ...

THIS IS THE PATH into the woods ...
This is the path in bluebell days, when the early summer sun lay down his golden coins amid the blue ...


This is the wood, found by the path ...
This is the wood in bluebell days, where I walked and lay down my coins of dreaming in between these beauties belled blue ...


These are the trees who live in the woods ...
These are the trees in bluebell days, who spoke me an old tale gathering, and a once-upon-a-dusk-light blue ...


This is the moss that carpets the trees ...
This is the moss in bluebell days, pillowing my dreaming head, greening the floor of blue ...


These are the flowers that dance on the moss ...
These are the flowers in bluebell days, when gold and green, they sang out blue, songs of the verge and summer anew ...


This is the lamb that looked from the verge ...
This is the lamb in bluebell days, who ate the flowers and watched me pass, up the lane, into the blue ...


This is the cow, a friend of the lamb ...
This is the cow in bluebell days, no crumpled horn, but a muddy rump, who watched me pass, up the lane, into the blue ...


This is the horse, a friend of the cow ...
This is the horse in bluebell days, who stood on that hill where I first looked over, and found this home, under the blue ...

This is the foal, daughter of horse ...
This is the foal in bluebell days, who lay down to sleep while I held her hoof, and breathed in the scent of the blue ...

This is the blue, eaten by foals ...
This is the blue in bluebell days, painting my dreams a delicate haze, and holding the moor beyond in eloquent blue ...


This is the hill, and the moor beyond ...
This is the hill in bluebell days, where I came to sit and imagine a map, describing a path, over the edge of the blue ...


This is the path, into the woods ...
This is the path in bluebell days, over the edge and into the woods, the path round the hill where I laced my dreams by the blue ...


These are the woods, not found by that path ...
These are the woods in bluebell days, woods by a river, a sat-by river, edged those days in blue ...


This is the river, the river of life ...
This is the river in bluebell days, where rocks and moss and sunlight play, and water goes by to the seas beyond and I sit and sing tales to the blue ...


This is the path, into other woods ...
This is the path in bluebell days, where a green road goes with my heart and my toes, and I skip away into the blue ...

The Day The Dunnock Died

Little soul in a grey chest
You died in my hand
Once you sang for spring
And flew on those dun wings under the sun
Today you trembled at the roadside
And lay your last heartbeat in my palm
Your graphite claws clasped in prayer as you left.
Here is my pencil prayer to you.





♫

Melted Snow...

THERE IS A KNOT in my heart made of old string, melting snow and hesitant birdsong.
I cannot tell you its tale, for it is far too sad. But I will tell you some things I have been thinking these last days of quiet...

I have been thinking of home and what that means to me and to all others.
For me, I must build my nest of beautiful sticks and have that always to return safe to. I believe that if we surround ourselves with that which we find beautiful, then the air in our homes will humm with our unique magic, a magic that is smelt by visitors and which is ours alone. How interesting the different feelings we get on entering the homes of others. How warm or cold or unnerving or welcoming they can feel. Some folks can sofa-hop happily, but not I. I must have my ephemera and imagery about me. In stretching yourself out as far as your walls, you are making a place which affirms your vision whenever you sit in it.


I have been thinking of journeys and of the pot-holed roads down which those journeys wind. My own journey has brought me in the most beautiful home I have ever had to a village in Dartmoor which I felt on arrival was itself home, and so, for now, my hat will rest here. There is a sixteenth century cottage with uneven floors that is to become my home in a few weeks' time. I must gather all my selves from all the ends of the dripping tree branches where I have hung them and bundle them up in a cloth bag along with books and paints and pots and pans, and start down this new fork in the road with a set jaw and a pocketful of tears.
The road is still muddy of course, from where the snow has melted, and it is uphill too I see. There may be wheels again further down this road, for I do love them so, but for now I must just put one foot in front of the other.


I have been thinking of the stories we tell of our lives, stories for those we know and stories for those we do not. I have wound out for you this story right here like a ball of string down a long long road. You have seen my life, though of course only a ladleful from the top of the soup. I love to tell you stories, true though they are, they are my tale... my life painted as in my pictures. You people whose unknown friendship I treasure, cannot share in all the pains of my real life. I have agonised over how to write, how to be true and yet hidden. You are a sea of strangers, and yet you are also each and every one of you a single person, a me, a someone with hurts and joys of your own, who thrills at walking in step with another through this strangest of media.


I have been thinking of winter and of the spring that follows all the same. How I find such beautiful in the snow, and its grey-hushed land-blanket. How it can all disappear in just one day if the air is warm enough, and a view is transformed. How life changes with the seasons and how much solace there is amongst the trees.


It is a new year, a new decade in a still new century, and January is nearly gone.


Soon I will show you the paintings I have been making of late, and in time pictures of my new walls, but for now, forgive me if I am quiet or overwhelmed, or if I give you poems that talk of loneliness...

WILD GEESE
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

Burnt orange evenings

WHEN THE SUN goes down, our evenings are orange. Lit by oil lamps and candles and smoking logs, lugged far and sawn to keep us warm. We squint at our meals cooking and peer into the shadowy sink to find spoons, read books by little circles of orange where the furthest away words on the page fall off the edge into the darkness.

The other day we took our home to the garage to be mended.. we hope the six expensive new diesel injectors will make the engine breathe more easily. While we waited for the work to be done, we drank pots of tea and ate scones too early in the morning. We wandered into interesting old bookshops and I bought a chamberpot in a brickabrack place. I found a delightfully dog-eared story called Tale of Sister Vixen and the Wolf with turn of the century Russian illustrations, a beginner's guide to Anglo Saxon Literature and Ted Hughes' collected poems which I find just beautiful. We sat by the wharf in Faversham, ate monkey nuts, and read the books until the engine was better...

And we have spent days hunting for lovely spots to put our house with not much luck, though there is a perhaps place by the sea where we might sneak for a few days. Life in the carpark is not so bad ... I have been drawing and painting and the days have been mild like the beginning of spring, and I sold the original painting of The Visitors too!
I leave you with some words made beautiful by Ted Hughes about an evening.

Full Moon and Little Frieda

A cool small evening shrunk to a dog bark and the clank of a bucket -
And you listening.
A spider's web, tense for the dew's touch.
A pail lifted, still and brimming - mirror
To tempt a first star to a tremor.

Cows are going home in the lane there, looping the hedges with their warm
wreaths of breath -
A dark river of blood, many boulders,
Balancing unspilled milk.
'Moon!' you cry suddenly, 'Moon! Moon!'

The moon has stepped back like an artist gazing amazed at a work
That points at him amazed.

Ted Hughes

The Jeweller's Clock

THE FIFTH CLOCK is done! Here for you to see is my newest Once Upon O'Clock creation ~ a clock for narrative jeweller Nina Bagley, who asked for reds and rooftops and moon and moth, because moths have been visiting her rather a lot lately. I also decided to include some text in this one. I am fond of entwining words around my images and thought it appropriate for this one since Nina puts words inside her jewellery. I hunted for suitable moth poems and found just a few.
The words that curl out of the moon's pipe smoke and chimney are from the T.S. Eliot poem The Burnt Dancer about a moth. O danse mon papillon noir is the refrain ... and on further investigation I found that a "papillon noir" is also an antiquated French expression for a melancholy thought, and I liked that.
For the small cluster of houses below, I took inspiration from medieval woodcuts of towns, where the whole group of buildings in enclosed within city walls, and the perspective is knowledgeably awry, with rows of houses piled simultaneously on top of and behind one another.
The moth is a Luna Moth, since it is sitting on the moon, and since they visit Nina from time to time too.
I think she likes it, and I do too... it'll be fluttering over the atlantic now, and I hope its fragile dusty wings can manage the long flight ...

A Busy Nest

THE HERMITAGE nest is very busy at the moment ...

there are sketchings and paintings
and musical arrangings
and animation-plannings
and drivings in van-ings
and recordings of soundings
and coffee aboundings
and readings and writings
and staying-up-all-nightings

So while we are busy with all that, I leave you with yet another black-and-whitey snowy picture!