I rejoice to see that old wood five-bar gate

that still stands guard beneath the ancient beech

to a field sloping gently down the hill.

The gate from an old farm track - now lost to time -

has seen so many seasons, so many harvests pass

and must have known an age of scythes and stooks

of horse drawn harrows, ploughs and wooden carts.

What could it tell of the village...

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To wake lit by that lunar light

Toiling from the depth of dreams

Misty minded from the night

So the distant land below the window seems

Illusory

To see beyond the shaded hedge

Hear again the whisper soft

As bedewed we walked, that ghostly pledge

Those lovely echoes of a distant past yet waft

Silently

To sense again her presence there

Knowing how we walked at ease

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This tree

is old

It knows its time but has grown in the ancient hedge

escaping the billhook and the thresher blade

standing 'gainst the farmer's pledge

that every stem should be neatly laid

This tree

is wise

It is as large as it needs to be and no more

its spread has grown to contain all of its leaves

and each year it grows to store

just as many leav...

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As an evening bat dips and feeds

Lost light dims down the summer night

To deep dusk blue as the bright sun cedes

To soft moon above beech tree height

In the gentle night's warm azure sky

The beech trees' majesty holds sway

Their silhouettes hide the lone owl cry

Black shapes caressed by owlish grey

These trees have lived so many ages

Their trunks have known the...

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This allegorical poem came out of my awareness of time passing, and a sense of the ultimately insubstantial or superficial qualities of much of this life that, as we grow older, seem less important or valuable than they once were.

Losing Faith

Faith, old friend, so wise and fulsome,

faded beauty at end of day,

draw me aside in a beechwood spinney,

make me swear on the code with...

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