Wilderness Poems

Cannnock Chase

There is a particular thrill in
Exploring wild places for the first time
Walking tracks I have never trodden
Alert to the unexpected
Eager and attentive to what
May be round the next corner

Today I met with glimpses of deer
With angry squabbling magpies
With the heavy scent of rain-soaked bracken
And with a lonely buzzard soaring
Above me in great steady arcs
that lift my gaze

The Morning Walk

I wake early and depart
summoned by the freshness of the morning 
toward the banks of the river
where I turn and head upstream 
admiring the sparkling haze of insects 
that swarm over the surface
flat but for the soft dimples of the breeze
and the slide of the gentle current 

I press on
distracted, list-making and rehearsing
solutions for tomorrow’s problems
the latent tiredness catches up 
with aching muscles and the worries 
greedily bend my world in on itself 
until the familiar comes to an end 
and I turn onto a new path 
leading me into a sloping woodland 
air scented and cool from the soft shade 
birch bark gleaming gold in ribbons of light
birdsong drowning out the distant rumble 
of mechanised hustle 

A startled blackbird startles me
reminding me that this is no Eden 
and yet I feel the elusive poise 
of stillness beckoning me beyond 
the suffocating walls of my ego 
into a clarity of body
a simplicity of mind
a faint glimpse of wholeness and alignment 
before I turn and retrace my steps 

Lost on Place Fell

We wade through this weightless lake of ice and mist
that clings and creeps, surrounding and squeezing 
all space and all sense
into a nebulous locality

It hems us in
bewitched but not ensnared 
for there is cold majesty 
in this wintry valley
a softness of tone 
a reverent hush
that calls all creation to stillness 
within and stillness without 
but for the rush of the beck 
and the rhythmic crunch 
of our ascent

Then suddenly the world is transfigured 
we pass through the vale of mist 
and we behold with wonder a new realm
of rising peaks and jagged crags
of cloudless expanse of eternal sky
of silver gleam on sun-blessed frost
my chilled skin sings in the warmth of the light
and joins the choir of slate and stream to 
proclaim in silence what words could but spoil

I’m lost in the wonder of it all
though not without fear that my presence
is a violation of sorts
that I am trespassing upon a beauty 
of which I am unworthy 
and I think to withdraw to the cold comfort 
of the valley safe from the unmasking light

But then as I stand at the threshold
of two worlds I recall the contours 
of salvation and remember 
that the old world of worth and merit 
has been thrown down and given way 
and all is freely given grace