View From A Hill, Page 2

Hills encircle this place.

  Look as you turn clockwise

  and count them off as you go.

  Start with the sea to the east.

  There's Langdon Hill, all dark conifers.

  Dark shadows and dark hearts

  will be met if you leave its paths

  and venture far beneath.

  Next is Golden Cap,

  sea cut but telling of an older place;

  step off its summit in your dreams

  and follow faery tracks into some fair vale,

  long since gone to a watery grave.

  Turn again and Stonebarrow Hill comes into view.

  Even from here your skin prickles at the touch

  of chill fingers of the wind or something unseen.

  Who is it lies beneath the sward?

  Sidhe kings and queens of some long lost kingdom?

  If lost it be.

  Turn on.

  Thistle Hill with Conegar standing on its own in front,

  orphaned and empty of all that still wakes at dawn.

  Next is Wootton Hill peeking

  from behind Coney's Castle.

  Then on to the steep scarps of Lambert's Castle,

  Sliding Hill and, a bare peak standing out,

  Pilsden Pen, against wooded Lewsden.

  Old forts for humankind

  ringed with birch, holly and oak

  vying with hazel and thorn for hearts and souls,

  be they of Faery or Adam's.

  Move on through the last quarter

  to Copper Hill then Jan's and Henwood.

  Colmer's peaking out and showing the way east from here.

  Finally comes Quarry Hill.

  All these speaking of the work's of humankind

  but who's to say under whose influence,

  before Langdon swings back into view.

  Hills all in the round as seen from this point

  like some charm necklace to keep the magic in.

  Or is it out?

  Salt Kisses

  I taste salt, West Wind.

  Whose kisses are you sharing?

  The queen of the sea's?

  From some sea nymph's lips?

  Pause a moment, take some tears

  from the sea in me.

  Carry them away

  and share them with some lover

  waiting for your kiss.

  (February 5, 2014)

  Trees

  Up here on the hill top,

  the broad expanse is home to many lores.

  Home to many vegetable hearts:

  heather and furze,

  moor grass and fir

  bramble and woodbine,

  pink centaury and tricoloured eyebright,

  milkwort, or bright Freya's Hair, and bluebell,

  bedstraw and speedwells,

  fairy's hair and cowslips,

  violet and St John's Wort.

  It remains protected still,

  though once home,

  in more recent times, to

  men with picks and shovels

  as well as the resting place of ancient ones.

  Trees grow stunted from the wind;

  birch, some fractal with witches brooms,

  crab and hazel,

  rowan and oak wrapped with ivy,

  beech and holly.

  encircle and keep the other ones out.

  Lower down ancient giants,

  hollies and oaks,

  reach up and out, a palisade

  keeping these faeries away.

  While willow and elder vie

  with thorns, black and haw,

  wrapped in a muddle of conflict,

  offering mute support to such fair ones.

  Who listens to their whispers now,

  when the wind moves through the branches?

  Lizards and snakes?

  Badgers and foxes?

  Buzzards and ravens?

  Not one, but the story has not yet ended

  and not all sleep their final sleep.

  Cogden Beach, Dorset

  This winter's storms have transformed

  the nature of this place, ripping up

  and rolling back the reefs of sea kale

  from the shingle ridge, roots left like tentacles,

  and sending waves of shingle right

  to the brackish pools but stopping on the brink.

  The grasses look combed roughly back

  by some angry and brutal parent.

  In places, orange roots create a loose net

  like some kind of under sea worms, washed up dead.

  Sea campions, thrift and sea beets are stripped away

  along with the nest sites of the terns and more.

  Nearer the sea, a dark tide mark tells another darker story

  not seen by me before, sea weed ripped by the root

  from some far bed, a lobster pot joins them.

  Cuttlefish bones punctuate the beach as usual

  but not so the corpses of razorbills, like flood victims

  caught up in the roots of fallen trees.

  Breasts so white and near perfect they lie

  as if they have fallen asleep while waiting

  for a loved one to return home from the sea,

  only to find they are the lost returned to some far shore.

  I cannot count beyond fifty as my heart is so chilled

  I feel I will fade and blow away like tears in the wind and spray.

  (February 23, 2014)

  Winter into Spring

  Spring is tiptoeing into view

  while Winter still cannot make up its mind.

  Elder and woodbine have opened their first leaves

  and primroses bring the sun down to ground.

  Hazel catkins continue to shed their pollen

  in a hope the wind will not take them

  on some mad sky ride to Neverland.

  All around others swell their buds in hope.

  White willows dazzle like amber clouds.

  Even oaks take a chance and bronze their tips,

  and birch grow little fat fingers

  to play a tune upon the breeze.

  Ash buds expand like beads of jet

  getting ready to explode into flower.

  Ivy, still glossy and green, flowers and fruits

  while others are barely awake.

  Blades, spears and arrowheads wave above the ground,

  a peasant revolt in miniature, as dog's mercury,

  bluebell, ransoms and arums spill leaves out into the light

  before the ferns unreel their croziers to hold them back.

  Pink campions and herb robert have yet to sleep,

  as they are joined by early celandine,

  dandelions and, so very early this year by far,

  the nodding heads of wild daffodils.

  (March 28, 2014)

  Green Heart

  I look out onto hills and wonder

  why this place calls to me so.

  I've spoken of fairies

  and of the magic of this jewel of a place,

  this green heart of the kingdom,

  but is that mere conceit,

  just poetic licence,

  or does it ring truer than I knew?

  Such magic does not reside just here.

  It dwells throughout their realm

  and I will find it wherever I travel

  as its blood now flows in my veins.

  I am ever the changeling,

  a hobbledehoy woven out of green wood,

  a mere scion budded onto a hazel wand,

  bowing to the wind.

  I will plant the seeds of this knowledge

  gifted me, where I next stop,

  and nurture them with the songs

  and stories learned here.

  You will find me

  where the West Wind blows,

  cradling sweet flowers in my arms,

  come next Spring.

&
nbsp; Dorset the Fae

  Dorset the Fae

  Dorset the Fair

  I am pulling back.

  Don't you see I must to just

  survive my leaving.

  A third of my life

  I've shared with you and your kind.

  Will you let me go?

  Will I let you go

  or must I steal you away,

  leave a green changeling

  in your place, your crib?

  Will fairies move to stop me

  or nod, look away?

  No, we will part, go

  our separate ways for now.

  In dreams I will walk

  your paths, climb your hills

  while this old sad heart does beat

  and life holds me fast.

  The Long Hour Glass

  The sand falls slowly

  counting down the long seconds

  that stretch still ahead.

  Must be fairy dust

  mixed in to make each grain ring

  as they strike the heap,

  mountain miniature

  below, sparkling and sparking

  with Annwn's magic,

  fairy voices all

  chiming like soft silver bells,

  full sweet laughter.

  Second to minutes,

  minutes to hours, hours to days;

  a month then no more

  but forever more,

  for good or for bad, twisted

  into a circlet

  worn by a fae queen

  or her mate, some fairy prince,

  welcoming us on.

  (Annwyn - pronounced Anoon - the Otherworld, the Land of Shadow ruled by fae King Arawn)

  About the author:

  I am Tony Farnden and I would like to think I am a poet, an author and a humanist. I am publishing this work which was developed on Wattpad under my Wattpad name of Uccello.

  Discover other title by Tony Farnden

  This is currently my second published work, the first being 'Dragon Love' but here are some up and coming stories:

  Another Song: Air Song (first in a sequence of at least three - Earth Song, Air Song and Water Song)

  The Multiplicity of Being (parallel / alternative take on Dragon Love) - this is finished but needs formatting for publication. I'd better get a move on.

  Connect with me:

  At Wattpad: Uccello