Nature Calling

At Sharpenhoe – Begin 

Take the slow track 

loaded with sloes, track

the track less travelled

up the hill’s back 

up the Clappers 

Up to the space on top 

warrened beneath and  

honeycombed with tunnels in the air 

passages from here to there 

Look down and look across 

the troughs 

of the town now gone 

now all there is 

up here for us 

is  

secret and time 

perspective and time 

time-wind-stretched sun-seeking branches reach out 

for Barton, Shillington, Silsoe 

and beyond to Clophill, even Wixams, Bedford 

A touch of class 

to measure ourselves against 

to keep our working anger sharp 

At Waulud’s Bank, Lygetun Rises

The clay calls to the hands to shape it

The worlds between the wood call for firesongs to make them glow

The pylon cries to be repossessed, rewilded, torn-down, reused, re-drawn

Drawn into wires, to bind the timbers each to each,

each to next

to raise the henge

to carve out

enclose

for us

a space within

what was inclosed

Place for song

Place for story

talk and dance

Place for hands to clap

eyes to widen

hearts to swell

minds to find one like them, open, close beside the fire

Place to share a plate, to clasp a palm

to offer balm to minds besieged by light-blue-back-lit-blue-light-bric-a-brac

A human eye that looks on green

with old connections starts to fill

Here girdled round with chalk and clay

with wit and timber, soul and sinew

here

in a carven space

enclosed by us

we find again that thing we lost

Just this

Just us

Justice

Just this:

Here on Penda’s blessing we are borne up,

from earth beneath to sky above

Here be dissonant hearts for peace

Here be strange-true minds for love

Beginners’ Hill

And to those who may feel 

they were never allowed 

That the hills were the place 

from where others looked down 

Then know all that you need 

is to feel the pull 

of necessity up 

against gravity down 

and to walk –  

go forwards and onwards  

and upwards will come 

Now, tramp the chalk down1 and climb 

Because the view is always better from the top of the hill  

and there’s only one way 

to be sure that you see it 

Then you pass on that view 

to the ones that come after 

You pass on that perspective 

to the ones that come after 

So, go there, ascend 

and once you’re up 

sit down, form a ring 

talk 

listen 

plan 

Form a plan 

because on the other side of a summer like this one 

who knows where you might land 

what you might have got done 

Let tomorrow and tomorrow

and tomorrow come 

take your land 

take your time 

The climb is the cause 

and the cause is the climb 

WHO/WHAT/WHERE/WHEN/WHY

Come in company 

come alone 

by day by night in sun in rain 

Bring torches and by dark re-find 

re-travel routes by daytime known 

The jeans-of-green1 suit every season 

pick a pair and haul them on 

come any day you’re free to come 

A day off sick – we walk the green 

A day too much – we walk the green 

A day alone – you walk the green 

A day all’s lost – you walk the green 

A day of sadness – walk the green 

A day of joy – walk it again 

The trees will bend to every mood 

Between earth and sky you can be nude  

in feeling, 

fury  

rage or song 

In loss,  

loneliness 

right 

wrong –  

the hill hears one as it hears all 

It’s here to hold up human foot 

here to hear what words you’ve got 

to whisper, scream, to sing to shout 

There’s room for all, there’s room to spare 

to amplify joy 

absorb despair 

An outdoor space for all that’s in 

each human vessel –  

toe to chin 

to domed bone-vault that curves beneath 

the sky above that curves the same 

as curves below eye and soul and heart 

all filled with commerce, music, art 

or care and worry or with naught 

with things heartfelt, with things head-thought 

So, bring them all, the bones they ride 

out here – no way, no need to hide –  

for tree and rabbit, stream and hill 

look just the same on good or ill  

as it shines or festers in human will 

Running Full-Pelt Down a Hill with a Bellyful of Handpicked Blackberries

I want to change the atmosphere 

to ride this sphere a different way 

ride out the fear I feel today 

look on green and breathe and say 

come one 

come all 

short stay 

long stay 

park the car 

and get away 

Climb high above  

the grim array 

of grey-brick slicks 

and wreckage left 

when life’s not housed 

but just contained 

contained 

constrained 

strained 

and stained 

with sewage grey 

with wasteland grey 

with deadline grey 

with grey today 

and break away 

See green-cell-grey 

the greened-cell grey 

of thought 

of time 

of time to think 

of time to walk 

of time to pray to 

whoever feels like what you need to 

if you pray 

or call it prayer 

just talk as equals anyway  

Do Tell

Reach between the eager thorns 

to squeeze-test, then pick your choice –  

your blackberry – and have it bleed  

red-purple  

on rubus fingers 

Let taste burst, spread and linger 

sharp and sweet (could go either way) 

stain your lips 

fill your nose  

It tastes so true! 

Direct connect 

– earth to you 

Not one thing other stands between  

to tell you what your senses do 

do tell 

Do tell: 

Tell what it means 

to eat without packaging or price 

Tell now what it means 

to taste it the way it was made 

or just grew 

belief won’t change 

what’s real to you 

Take it 

feel it 

eat it 

you – just you 

fruit – just fruit 

so sharp-sweet 

just 

just all you need 

feel free to feed 

the gut 

the mind 

the fruit  

the taste 

and ideas too 

on which to feast 

Who is the land? 

Whose is the land? 

Who walks it, tastes it, occupies 

– serves it better? 

Who owns it, counts it, incloses 

– serves it better? 

The juice-drip-lipped bold hedgerow scrumpers 

The berry-feasters in the wood 

The notice-posting 4x4ers 

The mouse-slick-clicking hedgefund swindlers 

What is the land? 

Asset listed on a sheet 

A line on chart –  

grey-green background 

for grey-green heart 

What is the land? 

Human-clouds that drift across 

that puddle-jump 

that berry-scoff 

that slide and wonder on the mud 

with eyes a-wide and hearts a-thump 

Which one includes? 

Which one includes? 

Which one be you? 

Which one be you? 

Come walk with purpose like a cloud: 

to shape the sun 

to bear the rain 

draw sustenance through feet from earth 

now sing 

now dance  

walk 

breathe 

again 

This chalk you walk will make its mark 

on wiped-fresh chalkboards of the heart 

on wiped-fresh chalkboards in the mind 

scribe messages in clean-carved lines 

The words to songs we thought were lost 

an open ear can catch, can find 

re-cord, reclaim, inhabit, write –  

The songs of farmers, workers, walkers, 

jaggers, rovers, drovers, travellers 

The tales of wanderers, tellers, traders 

heard in the silence, read in signs 

on walls, on stones, in tree-bark, spoor 

in cold-brook-babble, whispering grass, 

in birdcall, birdsong, hedgerow bustle 

susurration all along the branch  

the May-Queen3 dusting, carrion rotting, 

slime-mold bleeping under mulch 

– all calling out to draw you out 

– all calling out to draw you out 

– all calling you to speak your part 

This glossolalia of landscape 

– all for all to hear and parse  

and add to with the thump of footfall 

or pick of stick beside the path – says: 

You are the land’s, the land is yours 

to walk on, write on as you pass 

to mark the path as path marks you 

en-route, to root, to grow, to branch   

And herein rings this writing’s purpose 

clear as summoning churchyard bell –  

a human eye that looks on green 

with old connections starts to fill 

For old, hear ancient, deep, eternal 

grass on sole-skin, mud between toes, 

they walked before, you now, soon others 

each by life to land betrothed 

For those that roam these Chiltern acres 

whether born of them or drawn from far 

will each append their own new chapter 

don’t matter who/where/what you are 

Don’t matter whence or how you got here 

for all we know is here and now 

of the billion nows spread through whenever 

now comes the now to make your now 

So, come all ascenders, climbers 

feel earth beneath, feel sky above 

feel self between and feel connection, 

freedom, space – and that’s enough 

This land’s a land that welcomes wanderers 

a land of havens between hills 

of stands of trees and holy waters 

of green that shades the eyes and stills 

the feet of walkers, called to pause 

on hilltops curved beneath the stars 

feel turf that springs beneath the tread 

rub heather-flowers between the palms 

And come all you bold, steep descenders 

descendants of the ones before 

of humans seeking first to settle 

and then refreshed, more to explore 

This land’s a land that calls to wanderers 

to come uncover for themselves 

that truth of land and truth of humans: 

that all are equal on the fells 

This land’s a land that needs its wanderers 

– the ones who push the boundaries back 

for those to come, the ones who beat 

the currently unbeaten track –  

to see new ways we haven’t wandered 

trace ways neglected for an age 

since sleep ran to diurnal rhythms 

since where you slept wasn’t where you stayed 

This world’s not the world that once was 

and much we’d miss if so it was  

some lines have blurred and for the better 

generations have trod, have trod, have trod

Now!  Come all you who hear it calling 

whilst stood on streets, grey, rhythm-blind 

the cycle of night and day inside 

is a wild call, not to be denied 

Come feel the real, untrammelled sunbright 

Come test your skin against the rain 

and you’ll find, not so deep inside you 

a besom to unblock and drain 

the mind of clagging urban poison 

clogging artery, ear-canal 

Come blast it with some hilltop quiet 

or cold-brook-gurgle for an hour 

One hour, two or three or four 

and curiosity becomes a need 

to satiate the money-stomach 

and free the ear and eye to feed 

the hips to flex,  

shift 

the foot to fall,  

find 

a path to follow of its own 

to feed that newly wakened hunger 

sate new-need; deep as blood and bone 

Come serpentine, you walkers, dancers,  

wanderers, tellers, singers – swell 

this land that’s green, that tells a story 

in hilltop grace and holy well 

Come listeners, learners, solace-takers 

carers, givers, tired, lost 

to land that gives back all you give it 

to land that’s known, that’s kin and host 

Yes!   

Come you all, blessed human wanderers 

feel earth beneath 

feel sky above 

feel self between 

feel your land calling:  

Dawn-hearts for peace! 

Fire-minds for love!

The good air of the Chilterns invites to health by day and to sleep by night

Steep valleys, cut by meltwaters not the glacier itself.

Tree-topped hills, warrens, narrow rights of way

Romans, Saxons, beacons and Watling Street.

Ancient Countryside, by Rackham’s reckon,

developed slowly, avoiding large-scale changes

due to the difficult nature of the land.

Domesday records – scarp-foot open fields and dip-slope closes.

Homes assarted from the greenwood,

pollarded tree-pasture, measured in pannage.

Earth-beneath – foraminifera, coccoliths – powdered armour of ancient amoebae, raw materials of limestone

Sky-above – like anywhere, nitrogen, exhaust fumes, all that stuff

Caught-between – Beech woods, cob-nuts, sloes, blackberries, humans, other beasts

In summary then: Hard to settle, a problem to farm, difficult to cross . . .

If you haven’t previously felt comfortable visiting – We are hard to settle

If you haven’t previously felt comfortable visiting – We are difficult to cross

Waves of history break on our hoes,

energy runs up the slopes

pools and waits,

and the limestone dissolves . . .

Our chalks hide flint

Lugus’s teeth

the biters of shapers

the checks on the church

the tools of the ancients

If you haven’t previously felt comfortable visiting – Look again, beneath your feet

Our chalkbed is limestone

Limestone dissolves

then carried by water

moves, settles, reforms

makes beds

lays foundations

concretes, abides

Then once more the waters

Once more waves and tides

Migrants migrate

find refuge, survive

Limestone dissolves

runs downhill (with a smile)

runs too fast to keep up

despite stumbles

and trips

it pools

it abides

connects

grows

thrives

Chalk sketches precedents

makes maquettes

Marble follows with art

with columns, with steps

Foraminifera calcify

Coccoliths decay

get lost on the waters

make their way

They pool

They abide

Connect

Grow

Thrive

If you haven’t previously felt comfortable visiting us:

You’re already here.

Have a look.

Come outside.

Beyond Despond

Faithful pilgrim – walk the Warden’s way 

across the golf-course despond and ascend 

It’s steep, demanding, but rewards  

energy spent and burden borne 

Reach top and field and space to pause 

Once there, commune and sing and strum 

Sing loud and sweet and creatures come 

and wait outside the fire’s ring 

until they are invited in 

They need the rhythm, need the rhyme 

need earth beneath, need tune and time 

they joined our we – and as one we  

thus on we go beneath the sky: 

A dance begins, all smoke and steam,  

through all of we spoke voices green 

that told us truths we deep-down knew –  

– still revelations, through and through –  

To find the lost, to ground the vain –  

we must connect, again, again 

To lift the louring town-sogged mind –  

with sky-hill-light we radicalise 

Beaten-teen-spirit, fogged with blood –  

we cleanse with sun and honest mud 

Then dropped the vision, slept the we 

in puppypile-style – free 

Then sun-salute and stretch the back . . . 

Now!  Down the hill!  Sack Rome!  Look back . . .