MUSINGS WHILE STARING AT HEATHER

August’s more reluctant dawns mark shorter summer days

and darker dusks on beloved Blackdown Ridge, splashing

heatherspreads of violet blue and myriad hues of

purples, pinks midst random sprays of mottled mauves;

as if to mark the Northern reaches of the nation’s

newest Park, its endowment designed to accommodate

its spine, the ancient South Downs Way – proud trade route

once and celebrated pilgrimage still (though linked to

no saucy Chaucerian tales, each told in layers of

licentiousness which, were it to roll right through

a mossy glade, would surely gather up its deep green floor,

then, despite being so much heavier than before,

roll on and seek to gather more.) 

 

But any quest for comparison between North and South

is to digress – though it might be said that

the North’s renown lies more in its chronicler’s name

than in the Way itself. Of more interest to me as I sit and

close my eyes is the extent the Ways themselves may

(or let fate alone) make connections – not so much as between

a starting point and a destination but (for example) between

the Way, just one word, one whole world, man swarming

thoughtlessly over it, drawn to its edge, quite uncontrollable,

and a world comprising only books and periodicals;

 

And he, the artist in me, breathes the air deeply in

and hangs these worlds on hooks and that protrude from him;

and having hung them for half a sleep or so, thinking in dreamwords,

worrying that all of this is of questionable worth

given the identical girth of longitudinal lines, each scored precisely;

suggesting too many routes, too many choices for any

man, woman, child, too many voices for any flora or fauna;

and for him, however full his lungs, however young his legs,

his future’s uncertain from the patterns of dregs in the leaves

left cold in his cups, from the webs he has weaved.

 

He stirs as the wind chases sleep from his eyes

which alight on and cheer the heather, again the same prize.

We celebrate those artists who can with some ease

juxtapose perhaps three or four colours that they have found

will sit most comfortably, most times, alongside each other,

some of which will also fit well with the world that surrounds them;

perhaps, even, a handful may create and state art – art perhaps

not yet known, nor desired, nor searched for. Such colour kings,

left alone for an hour, or a day, may well paint a colour edifice

which none has paid or played for – a gift pure and innocent?

But who the giver, so generous, munificent?

It lies within each of us to find our own natural colours,

check they sit well together and can be shared with others

(thoughts on mixing and mending on palette and canvas).

And then cast them to the four winds, confident that

such despatch will prove, in time, to have duly and truly

crossed all the mountains and sailed all seven seas

as required to achieve allotted departure dates and returns.

And whoever looks first in August for these purples and pinks

may not know that the gods have allowed but one short month

so to stun the senses; and that perhaps a better beauty is found

where from nothing flood the colours over August’s Blackdown.