Natural Memories
Natural Memories
i.
Too often, in my life, I found myself
Exiled fromEngland–
Country of my birth
And great sustainer of my dreams;
Home of my culture
And rare cricket’s poetry –
And recollected, in my loneliness,
Those absent beauties which had pleasured me
Throughout my childhood
And long, youthful years
Spent deep inSuffolk
And inSomerset.
Sometimes, alien prospects stirred in me
A yearning for the lovelinesses known
Amongst green pastures and well-wooded slopes
Imprinted on my mind
When consciousness was still subliminal,
(And therefore most effective),
In the memories it learned:
And also scenes from later years, recalled
When more maturity informed my views
With broad significances of these things
Which had eluded callow interest.
Then I would see, upon my inner eye,
The vivid images that once I knew,
As clear as though they yet surrounded me
And not mere souvenirs of what had been.
Then I would hear, within my inner ear,
Those sounds which had enraptured me; as though
Dear dreamy scenes had come to life again,
Or had been captured on a mental film
Which now replayed them for my benefit
As solace in my exiled circumstance.
And I both see and hear them now
As I recall those absent years
And how I felt outside
My native country’s island shores –
(On sweat-steamed, shadeless days when humid heat,
A sodden, heavy blanket, pressed me close,
Starting warm perspiration-rivulets
To flow in enervating streams across
Hot-pulsing skin; uncomfortable, fierce
And unrefreshing days of unrelief;
Or in the bitter chill of wintertime
In continentalEurope, when the cold
Bit through my bloodless flesh with icy teeth
And gnawed my frozen bones until they ached –
Still dreaming daydreams
As I filtered through my mind
My life’s experience, its hopes and fears,
Still seeking to distil, somehow,
The essences of perfect happiness
And that fulfilled
Contentment rarely known.
ii.
My fondest recollections centre most
Upon the creatures which inhabited
The close woods, fields and hedgerows of the land
Which hid me in its hollows secretly;
Or boldly lifted me up high upon
Its rolling hill-crests
And steep-sided cliffs
Whence I could oversee the neighbourhood
Or stare across the restless ocean-waves,
Or merely gain perspective of myself –
Within the broad context
Of Nature’s wild lone –
Whilst I sought peace in solitariness
As far from humankind as I could go,
Where untamed shaggy ponies on bleak moors
Steam-breathed from nostrils flared at chilly dawns,
Or placid cattle-herds meandered slow
Across wide fields, contentedly
Or, in more narrow country lanes,
Congestedly;
And sheep, like stones, were scattered far and near,
White outcrops in an all-pervading green;
And massive saddlebacks – whose rotund bulk
Belied remarkable agility –
Rooted amongst the hedges and the trees
For succulent delicacies
Buried amid
The débris of the year;
Or in the Lowland Borders and the high
Bare bens ofScotland, where I saw
Stout, matt-haired, wide-hornedHighlandcattle roam
Braving inclemency
With stubborn, stoic disregard;
Whilst, overhead, the cruciform
Great eagles wheeled, silently observant
Of every movement underneath their flight.
For, in the countryside,
Although alone,
You never are alone;
Sharp ears hear well your every step,
Keen eyes observe each move;
The country-creatures curiously mark
Your actions and,
(If you don’t offer threat),
They come to share your company awhile
With unselfconscious,
Innocent delight.
At such chance meetings I could soon forget
The cares and tribulations of my life
In calm acceptance of these creatures’ natural
Spontaneous activities.
iii.
My mind recalls them
With affection now, no less
Than when I first encountered them and thrilled
With wonder at their beauty and their grace,
My eyes and ears absorbing each nuance
Of unpremeditated artlessness.
For I have seen
Expansive fields in which,
Stirred by the tidal-motions of the wind,
Tall grasses ebbed and flowed as though
They formed the surface of some hedge-locked sea;
And other fields,
Like star-lit green Heavens,
Dark starling-spangled
In the evening glow
And sonorous
With whistling, whirring life.
And I have seen
So many quiet cemeteries where
The berried yew
Still shades the buried youth
Of wars beyond our disremembering.
And I have seen
Green florets on fir-branches brightly glow
With televisual intensity
Against dawns’ growing light
And hillside pines
Blush copper-trunked at rising of the sun,
Or rust as though decayed
In fading sunsets.
And I have seen
Huge flocks of starlings, intermixed
With pigeons, rooks and ‘pies,
Thicken the air above my head
And darkly cloud the skies:
The while my senses were transfixed
To hear their mingled cries
And see their perturbations spread
Abroad before my eyes.
And I have caught
Glimpses of stealthy mink
Escaped from barred captivity to roam
The wooded margins of the countryside.
And I have seen,
(Where waterlily pads
Float placidly upon the face
Of rivers, lakes, canals
Which are their natural moist habitat),
Milky swans – sail-wings unfurled –
Glide effortlessly on their way
Amongst tall, spikuled thistle-plants
Globe-crowned with regal, purple diadems.
And I have seen
On coasts he raucous gulls
Flock waves and beaches like ice-floes or foam
Whitening the waters
Or, on inland rubbish dumps,
Fighting for detritus-scraps as if
Their own survival were at stake.
And I have watched
Wild geese fletch noisily
Athwart autumnal skies
In the grey gloams of sullen dawns and dusks.
And I have seen,
On warmer days the handsome bullfinch,
Like a jewel, shine
Along the hedgerows of lone country lanes;
Their shades of pink, blue-grey, black, white,
Putting to shame
The very blossoms where they played;
And honey-hued
Squat yellowhammers flit
Like bloated golden bees amongst the sprays;
And pastel-plumed
Chirpy, quick chaffinches
Hop through dark hedges like magic, mobile,
Multi-tinted flowerlets, (pink and blue in brown,
Corporal-striped, pert-pointed pinions),
By brisk winds helter-skelter blown;
And hover-hawks
Hung Christ-like in the sky,
Borne on their unseen Crosses
Of airy atmosphere.
And I have seen
And heard the pale-eyed, sooty jackdaw
With its mimic tongue,
And the crested, blue-patched jay,
Together with their cousin magpie
In its bright bi-toned livery;
A sharp-eyed, bold triumvirate who form
A robber-gang of deft alacrity
Whose members steal
All glitter-objects they espy
To dress their nests and complement
Their noisy, feathered vanities:
True popinjays!.
And I have seen,
(Where reds and golds, all flecked
With yellows, browns and varied shades of green
Sear a rare grandeur on the dying year),
Shy deer lift watchful heads
Amongst the leaves
To stare in ruminative calm,
(The while their supple muscles tensed
For instant flight instinctively),
Before resuming their
Browsing of the foliage, untroubled
By my openly unthreatening approach.
iv.
And I have smelled
The clinging, oily redolence
Of clammy, tangy damp pines;
Rare floral fragrances inhaled;
And breathed the odours which arose
When morning mists from sheltered lakes
Ascended to the brightening skies
Between the steaming trees,
As though there burned, beneath
The opaque interface
Where water melts to air,
The smoking campfires of a mighty host
Concealed from my occluded sight.
v.
And I have heard
The skies creaking with crows,
Thick-massed on ragged wings,
Beating Autumnal dusks;
And from beneath my careful feet –
Near where the timid fieldmouse and the small,
Shy vole conceal themselves beneath
The tangled undergrowth –
The sudden, loud-winged pheasant leap,
Shouting a startled ‘Cok-cok, cuk’
In high-pitched resonances raised
Above the whirring clamour of its swift
Departure from that hiding place.
And I have heard,
In shaded woodland-deeps,
The unseen pulsing throbs
Of night-hid wings
In frightened flutters from the dark leaves stir;
And hedges rattle
With unruly magpie throngs;
And sombre coaltits in
Their sober plumage ‘wheep’
Amongst the berried branches,
Mournfully discreet;
And blackbirds
With their orange-yellow bills,
(Like golden whistles with black ribbons tied),
Outpouring through those shining instruments
Pure music’s liquid modulations:
More magical than human arts
Have ever conjured yet.
I have known
The haunting howl of the hunting owl
Pierce my pale consciousness with dread
Beneath the dead-eyed moon; and heard
The brown-beaked bittern boom
Where rusted reeds stood ranged in ranks
Along the slow canals’ slight banks;
And vixens scream
In depths of night
Whilst foraging for food for cubs
Whose shrill voracity demands more meat;
And the clattering cries
Of the loud magpies
Shatter those silences where
Bright, swift, snake-water-runnels slide
Their shining scales through forest paths
After a sudden shower.
vi.
Sometimes, rarely,
I have seen the hoopoe
In its pale pink plumes, with crested crown
Aflutter in the breeze, spread barred wings wide
To catch the Summer sun.
And I have seen
Broad hillsides where
The massive shirehorse hauls the heavy plough
To open up the fertile soil
In preparation for its future crops.
And I have seen
The dainty, russet fox
(Where sempiternal gorse-blooms burn
In valley, field and hedge, on rock and hill),
Picking its careful way –
Ears pricked, sharp nose to ground,
Keen eyes alert – tracking its prey;
Whilst countless rabbits gambolled in play,
White scuts a-bob, beside their warrens
Near thick bramble-shrubs,
Seeming oblivious
Of that sly predator’s approach, until
The look-out’s sudden stamp despatched
Them to their burrows in a rush
Of flurried furry legs and laid-back ears.
And I have seen
Huge hares chasing through the dewshot leas
In unconcerned lithe friskiness,
Self-confident in their ability
To outrun any danger save
The human hunter’s lethal gun.
And I have seen
The thick-set badger at its sett
Or waddling purposefully on its trails
Along the margins of the woods and fields,
Long striped head swinging like a metronome
In time with pacing paws.
And I have seen,
Amidst the marshes ofEast Anglia,
The foreign coypus wading through
Thin weed-choked ditches as they chewed their way
Towards the deeper, broader fenland dykes;
And lean, slick otters gliding through
Clear streams, or slipping up and down
The banks like furry, playful giant eels;
And swift stoats sprinting through short grass
In bounding runs of svelt ferocity.
And I have seen
Tree-squirrels, red and grey alike,
Display astonishing agility
Upon high branches, or bounce
Like animated furry balls
Across the open spaces between trees,
Flaring their tails like streams of smoke,
Whilst keeping watchful eyes aloft
Where pendant hawks patrol the air
Hunting for careless prey.
And I have seen
The blue-green-russet kingfisher
Burn bright in darting forays over ponds and streams;
And slow, grey, silent herons hunch themselves
In patient poses amid marshy wastes
Until their appetites have been assuaged.
The brash robin, unafraid to shew itself,
Has caught my eye –
The minuscule wren, too, despite its discrete ways –
By reason of their Winter fortitude
Which seems to well-epitomise
The providential grace
Of natural law.
vii.
These things, and many others, I have seen
And heard during my solitary walks
Beneath the crumpled clouds
Which lay like fallen curtains
Across the hilltops, smothering those heights
With moistly involute opacities –
And under open, sun-bright skies which lent
Added enchantment to experience –
Throughout my youthful years
‘InEngland’s green and pleasant land’.
These were the sights and sounds which most
Beguiled my exiled days and nights.
They brought to me
A peace and happiness I else had not achieved;
And they determined my to make return,
As soon as opportunity allowed,
To reacquaint myself with them once more
When I set foot again onEngland’s distant shore.
And still these pleasures cancel exile’s pain
As I remain
Unable to surround myself
With the realities
Which have engendered these
Natural memories.
