#1977 - cloud and the mountain

 

1977

6.151

31.v.25

cloud and the mountain

 

all this looming

where are the roots?

 

a sheep sun fleecing

sky is high

 

drift

cows as far as milk

 

there are lines

billowing gone

a little sea the snow meets

 

friskybit horsies

 

wispy dour

soft spoken for mist

 

this is the thousand year penance of flesh

doesn’t fit

neither up nor tumble

 

it’s terror for a tale

we’re rising above

 

grey way piled in stones

 

the all night dew spangle dawn surreal

 

there isn’t a line where you’d say  

 

snow pockets the craggy dark

 

a patch pale blue between

#1976 - a thicket bare of

 

1976

6.150

30.v.25

a thicket bare of

 

all pointing, here tangle

bud to green

 

the hillscramble underhoof

leaf strew

look up

twig just

and times you’re wild crash through

that’s out of the ashen pearl by mud

 

little understream to flourish

 

then here are the fowl of the nether sky

it lies about our ears

 

#1975 - windblown and birchbent

 

1975

6.149

29.v.25

windblown and birchbent

 

eclipsed

the eye itself is a map

wrapped for fleece, pinking in

 

road weaving, midge bitten

 

in a sheep coloured country

understorm lush

 

with luck all graze

 

trace of hair, drawn line

accidents of nest and bone

 

a weed breath depth

seed and lintel

 

broken tree upwashed

 

the body as heat until

pleasure of an instinct met

these are few

and how we’re here

we remain

 

as cauldron to, as kettle

 

all this year’s half shore wash

 

dark of the world is hiding this while

 

a drift in the ice in time

the sun lies very far

 

go in and further

under the map

 

until

the day’s all night as well

 

no one intended this

 

it’s stuffing a fish

with a sea with a ship

with the dream of a sailor to drown

#1974 - the land just made

 

1974

6.148

28.v.25

the land just made

 

a fells throw and flower sprung

 

stream beside was just now ice

 

a lambswhite dotting green

 

grey of the beginning falls

 

how feeble a fence against the world’s grass

 

ponies they call horse here

 

this saying mine won’t wash

 

cloud of insects, soil to protect

 

everything washes away

 

soft edges or none at all

grass soft under

 

everything leads down

 

out of the endless wind to still

 

to turfed in feather day

 

you’ll bury yourself just here

#1973 - steinvarða

 

1973

6.147

27.v.25

steinvarða

sometimes wish there were dark and a tree

 

big sky here on Mars

it’s summer

we come by the cairnsway

 

that’s to best the mist

 

what look to be ruins are merely

like old diggings (don’t fall in)

 

pile down through time

the handmade way

our wilderness from

 

here the witch hat mountains

hope tops snow

all water falls

 

all the land’s alive

growls, roars

it’s shifting on

 

in a lava field

and an active patch

 

the old gods still blowing bubbles

letting off steam  

 

a shelter round the bale for warm

 

moss forest

stone mountain

 

a blanket of grass to graze

just a haywhiff of home

 

sometimes wish there were dark and a tree

#1972 - at Höfn, or nearby

 

1972

6.146

26.v.25

3 a.m.

at Höfn, or nearby

for the van life in Iceland

 

 

a mist wreathed crag

as from the day bright

 

many wheeled in the grey

of elsewhere, as are we

 

this must be one of rain’s varieties

to give the cosy roof

 

and breakfast – a foretelling

kenning

 

what milksoft reap stiffs limbs half day?

hot tea too

 

no one eats the same porridge twice

 

in all such things we trust

#1971 - word and gone

 

1971

6.145

25.v.25

word and gone

 

think of from one to ten

 

someone’s vanishing

because it’s where we are

how long?

 

sometimes you’re the one in the window

that’s what there is to buy

 

so many just guessing

 

a shape of my private sea

or sky wash

 

here is the intricate page of self

 

won’t even know who’s where

 

how did a sound become a sign?

did sign get to be sound?

 

to be with a picture is to find the words

 

look to the world for a way

 

#1970 - the ordeal

 

1970

6.144

24.v.25

the ordeal

Sydney – Dubai (20.v.25)

 

beginning unnaturally not where I am

tin frail up past weather

 

flight’s merciless

 

so many screens ahead

aliens, romance, Armageddon

so much shouting

signs of the time

it’s we’re away

 

they trap us with the dinner leavings

 

there’s night, like a page gone through

 

see the world tree fall

 

hear the baby’s all day whimper

somewhere under

wrap blanket up, pretending bed

 

something about the unending

 

shutters up so nobody knows

 

nowhere again, in no time at all

 

just falling in with the sky

people need charging too