poetry diary

“This is my happy place,” you say,
and make it so with naked girls
and ancient books; sunflowers,
soft armchairs, opened writing desks,
a framed window with flower box;
pots and hedonistic rugs.

My happy place might share most things:
different girls perhaps, and books;
more plants, a clarinet and maps –
scents of summer, apple trees;
water too, for evening swims;
a seed table for birds.

I wonder though, to balance this –
for every happy place we make
might there not be as well a sad,
unhappy place, with pots unfilled;
fires unmade, and a woman –
unopened and unread?

******

There is a sign above the fireplace in the small and very cosy cottage we stayed in last week (see Human landscapes below) which says “This is my happy place”. I have only met the owner twice, and he and his wife seem very happy, so apologies for the third verse. The sign and lovely house prompted reflection.

Unexpectedly
suspended yellow
against blue;
lemons amongst leaves,
anticipate
juice-shocked
tongues.

******

There was a lemon tree in the small courtyard garden of the second cottage where we stayed. To my Northern European eyes this was very exotic.

An eagle,
dark against clear sky.

Slow seeking seeing sensing slides,
twists and glides –
high –
through naked shrinking hills,
seeks,
with one purposed swing of silent wings
and glint of gold against the blue,
tension-spilled –
falls, brings
sudden death –
fresh
kills.

******

There were many eagles and griffon vultures near where we stayed in the Picos de Europa.

Without the mountains, this house
makes a home with art – sensual
terracotta reds and gold;
and warm, most human breasts and thighs,
drawing me to cool, silent,
watching eyes, which say: ‘I am
beautiful – like you – (and mountains too),’
and with a yard, and lemon tree,
glass of wine and distant dog,
you welcome me;
human nature, shaped in stone.

******

We have moved to a cottage by the coast. There is no view here, in the centre of the village, but the owners have made it a wonderfully welcoming and cosy space with art and careful design. This includes, slightly disconcertingly at first, many nude images of the owner’s wife, who also gave us some excellent cake.

I like the contrast with the mountains and that both equally make visitors feel relaxed and comfortable.

Once these homes were built
by men like me,
with balconies – how they mocked –
in Colio,
where to care for cows is hard enough,
and wives and mothers asked no more
than milk and children,
an odd festival,
and enough meat to last the winter.

But you might have been published in Madrid,
or fêted in Seville;
left the women and the mountains
to their timeless game,
and played your own.

Your balcony says enough,
on evenings like this;
moon rising over mountains,
still forest and a distant owl,
calling to me,
and now to you across the years:
‘Hola y gracias.’

******

We are staying in a traditional village 600m above the valley.

Mountains, unfolded each morning
by light from a resurgent sun,
spawn vultures, shaping corkscrews with the air;
their ancient purpose held by patient trees.

Compelled to stillness, cattle stand
apart, dropping dull notes from hidden bells,
and an old woman sits to watch
– a scene unchanged since Hannibal.

Like her I yearn for younger, warmer flesh –
more lively days and nights, with laughter,
wine and song – fading gently at the end,
perhaps, to the same slow rhythms of this land,
and thence to sleep.

*******

This is a wonderful, largely unspoiled and timeless land.

There is a quiet greatness in the man
harvesting his hay
against the mountain’s weight
and the creeping, timeless flood of the trees.

**********

We are on holiday in the Picos de Europa, Northern Spain.

I used to scan the undulating waves for whales;
imagined tails and dorsal fins
just missed in swirls of sudden foam
that spoke of some creative force –
willing, but uncome.

But now I know the whales are gone;
eddies of another age
and chances missed.
The surface of the sea is wracked by sobs,
and the deep, slow, swell
of despair.

*******

On the Caen-Portsmouth ferry, Sunday afternoon. Possibly not in my normal optimistic mood.