Oxymoron

My poems do not rhyme or scan.

They do not tell you who I am.

They struggle to make perfect sense.

The words they use are far too dense.

The words are long and not well known.

You’d never use them on the phone.

They do not tell you how my soul

Is burning in a fire bowl.

Or how my guilt at being here

Is making all my thoughts less clear.

My poems do not rhyme or scan.

They do not tell you who I am.

Oh!

A Lakeside story

It is once more November, and as I sit here pen in hand under the light of a faltering desk lamp, surrounded by books and glared at by Google Scholar, I cast my mind back to two years before.

November in the Lakes is beautiful. The sun glances across the landscape setting the autumn trees alight in a blaze of gold, orange and yellow. It was on just such a day, as the sun was making its descent to the horizon, that we were walking the high moors and marvelling at the view.

4pm and it was paradise. By 5pm, we were lost; the temperature was dropping rapidly and everywhere was dark. It would have been wise to at least have chosen a night with a full moon, but we were not wise.

What kit we had was not really sufficient and we were huddled behind a dry stone wall getting at least some protection from the cold wind that was rising. I felt panic. I was not sure if we would survive the night.

I saw a shadow move in the starlight. It was not clear what it was, and my panic only increased as it approached.

Finally, I realised it was a sheep. It nuzzled my partner and then suddenly turned and ambled quickly away. We were alone again and I returned to wondering how we could survive in the cold autumn wind.

I need not have worried, for 15 minutes later the sheep was back, and with a whole flock who surrounded us and protected us and kept us warm the whole night.

I have often wondered since about that amazing night. Sheep are so often characterised as unintelligent and willing to follow what lead they are given, but in that moment, a sheep recognised a need and mobilised a whole flock to meet it.

In the morning, they melted away back into little groups of two or three scattered across the hillsides. They didn’t ask for money or food or even gratitude. But gratitude is what we felt and I hope the sheep could feel it too.

It is a constant wonder to me that when an urgent need arises, somehow there is a solution.

Is this part of the way the universe turns, or is it just that I am somehow lucky.

Jabberwok

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son! 5
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought— 10
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, 15
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back. 20

“And, hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves 25
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

I see the trees with leaves of grey
The dust blown streets, the rubbled way.
And down the road a rubbled man
with dusted face approaches.

And through the grey, streaks golden skin
Washed by rivulets of pain.

And as he passes by he smiles
The saddest smile I ever saw
I nod to say I understand. And yet, I don’t,

I can’t. I only read the news
I was not there. To see is not to understand.

Oh come the rain to wash away
The gray. Bring back the green,
The gold. Dispel forlorn
Spring up new seeds of hope.

Is it fruitless to aspire?
Is it better to despair?
Is it fair to judge?
If you were not there?

These days will pass. A thousand years
And none will know of abject tears
The green will grow atop these stones
These bricks of long forgotten homes

And will these folk forget their past
And in that loss find peace at last
Or will they carry in their heart
The hate that tore them all apart.

Maybe one day I will find the answer to this question, but for now, I just plough on with my thesis in behavioural psychology — inspired almost entirely by that incident with the sheep.

Fruitless