Where I am clamped by silence;
Where brisk buoyant winds
Shock and shake my lungs,
Blowing sharper shards of pain
Across swathes of landscape.
Let me walk, let lark song skitter
Through pathways in my mind,
Scatter colour in my dark,
Cool hot hurt with each
Air-blessing, soft-bursting melody.
Let me walk on high ground,
Watch watercolour-skies
Pool into paint-washed hills,
While anorexic clouds un-skein,
Over-stretched between horizons.
Betrayal drove desire for home:
I longed for fells, drystone walls,
Bleating ewes, rollicking
Stone-bed streams,
But Yorkshire is not here.
When did I give consent?
Somehow, Shropshire infiltrated
In plain clothes,
Became silent medicine,
Embroidering my dark, bandaging my soul.
So, let me walk on high ground,
And let the landscape stitch my wounds
Together, and I will change.
I will walk on high ground
Under a Shropshire sky; I will
Thread myself into the landscape,
To gaze, and meld, and heal, and be.
This poem was highly commended in the King Lear Competitions, 2023.
8 comments:
Lovely poem
I only rarely reach this place of comfort with the glorious Shropshire scenery, my soul still longs too much for the sea.
Irena, you express so passionately your longing for that Yorkshire landscape, but it’s still there and you can visit and steep yourself in it whenever you have the opportunity.
Was the second comment Anne’s or yours Irena?
Such beautiful imagery - These lines stay with me.
Watch watercolour-skies
Pool into paint-washed hills,
While anorexic clouds un-skein,
Over-stretched between horizons.
Like you, Shropshire has grown to take a big part of my heart and soul, even though I find myself further from the sea than I ever thought I’d live! Shropshire is as Dorset felt fifty plus years ago - before Dorset got clogged with cars and packaged up as ‘Jurassic Coast’. Shropshire has been left alone and your poetry describes so beautifully what’s so lovely about living here.
Thankyou Ann 😊
I totally get that...the sea is in your blood like the Dales are in mine 💓
Ann's....I have answered both now. Didn't look yesterday! You are right Jennie, we cam go more easily now. While Mum was in Essex, we went there instead. Every intention of going to Yorkshire again follow our visit last Oct. 😊
Thankyou so much Liz, very much appreciated! I didn’t know you had lived in Dorset. I visited Dorset in the 1970s, it was spectacular then.
Let's hope Shropshire stays as it is .....lovely open skyscape 🌞🌞🌞
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