WRITING INSPIRED BY LANDSCAPE

  Light leaks in levers out reluctant sight-severing shadows clinging to the night. Like leaven lifting lumpen dead-dark depths of deep time secrets, sheltering from the piercing eye of truth. First filtered rays coax earth-fast shoots, waking to warmth, reaching up to greet the sun- source of exuberant light. defining day, month by month, sufficient for millions of plants and trees to stand tall and grow. From this light, black dissecting those that love the dark must hide and rest, conserve, repair - for in the darkness, too,  comes healing, restoring strength, new season's rising. And in the depths, new knowledge is gained, garnered for growth, understanding is revealed, in a cycle of gift and loss, light' absence welcomed for its promise of life begun again. Paul Middleton Image Belona Greenwood

  There is a continent where a thousand tongues sing Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, the whistle and the click. A place on earth since earth began; encircled by The Med, The Red, Suez, and Oceans: Indian, Atlantic.   There is a land of islands of Alba’s name:                                                        Mesolithic: Rum, Eigg, Ailsa Craig,                                                 a place of pipes and drum where water sprites roam.     I want to plough these naked lands, the peaty loam, the melon ground where Jumbie meets Kelpie in the music of time.     First, let us bless the blood of mothers wearing chains below deck, For humankind her baby overboard she tossed, survived the ship wreck. Her Highland croft cleared; clan bairns below stolen soil - their heritage, lost. Her sister enslaved by an echo endorsed, embodied, enshrined.   And there is no end to it all.   My body, a lament woven into a Celtic shawl. Hers, a harmony of sun and sour-s

That evening I log onto Facebook to post my fantastic gardening tip onto the village Facebook group. I'm pleasantly surprised to see that my neighbour has already posted a picture of me using the turkey baster.    I was right, she was impressed with my ingenious idea.    Her post is extremely popular with lots of likes and smiley laughing faces. It feels good to know that I have made so many people happy. I leave a comment thanking her for sharing my idea with the village and my phone pings all evening as people acknowledge my comment. Although I am somewhat baffled by some of the replies, particularly the ones about alternative uses for the baster, I have never felt so admired! I sleep badly. What time do the birds wake up? I hear their first calls before it's even light, so I haul myself out of bed, dress and hurry out into the garden.    As I round the corner as a flurry of wings greets me. The net curtains are still in place, but I can see evidence of where they have been s

  Over the 40 + years I have spent observing insects, this I have learned… It is invidious to judge anything by appearance, but some insects will never look attractive in my eyes. B ristletails, earwigs, cockroaches, and many flies fall into this category, while the beauty of other insects draw me to them like… well, a moth to a flame. Fortunately, I am no longer mottephobic, or afraid of moths, an inconvenient condition my mother unintentionally gave me when I was a child. Neither do I have entomophobia, a more general phobia of insects. Instead, I find them fascinating both to observe and to research.   I have also learned that I am never going to see every species of insect, given that they account for over 90% of creatures on the planet, the most diverse group of living animals and the largest biomass among terrestrial animals. Entomologists estimate there are over 10 quintillion insects (10,000,000,000,000,000,000) or about 200 million insects per human at any given time on

  What next? Ah yes, the water. I am very wary of watering after the tomato fiasco, but I reason that all things need water to grow. The school hymn runs through my head.  'We plough the fields and scatter The good seed on the land, But it is fed and watered By God's almighty hand;' Damn, now it will be on loop in my head for the next few hours. It wouldn't be so bad if I could remember any other lines. So should I wait for the miraculous watering to take place? As we are currently in the middle of a prolonged dry spell possibly not.   I check the packet for watering instructions. There are none. I turn to trusty Google again and type in 'How to Water Carrot Seeds'. In dismay I read the answer; ' Water  deeply prior to planting.  Water  the area with the gentlest stream you can provide, and keep it constantly moist until the  seeds  sprout.'   Water prior to planting! Have I just wasted the last two hours? A plan I need a plan, there has

  Late November leading into early December the air around us seemed to have something in it, a new presence. The air was no longer invisible. Particles coated in the thinnest of gossamer sheaths of cold, gathered and created this shimmering grey white blanket of fog floating, or rather hanging.. not in the air, it filled the air, it was the air.  Still. No wind. Only me moving through freezing water all around me. Stroking my eyes, my cheeks, even my teeth. Tiny beads and droplets find resting places on my beard. There’s cold creeping in between the layers of my clothing with every step, with every move. And there’s a taste. Faint, delicate and only just detectable on the tongue. But it’s there, tantalising and teasing. Then it hits with the memory of frozen lakes high up in the mountains, high up in the silence of the sky, high up so the ice and cold clashes with the bright dazzling light of the sun that looks as if it could be touched. It’s as if the cold has carried this flavour st

  For World Earth Day Thursday 22 nd April 2021   The Earth Rights Act in Perpetuity Inspired by the Human Rights Act 1998   As a woman I have fundamental rights and freedoms which not only impact on my   life and death, they affect my everyday life: what I say and do, and my beliefs.   I believe that the earth belongs to me; that we belong to the earth.     We are the people of the earth.   We are the earth.   It is my duty to protect, preserve and to save from harm the living earth upon which I thrive. Here find an Act of Earth Rights given in Perpetuity.     The earth has the right to: the right to a nature-cycle freedom from torture and degrading treatment freedom from husbandry through slavery and forced labour the right to live free in the known universe the right to an eco-voice the right not to be punished for something for which it was not responsible the right to respect freedom of reflection, et

  I visit the years in the looking: sense green horizons hear your voice on a falling leaf stand proud where I sleep, sleep where I stand   watch the moon’s hidden light swallow the fire of the day. Make a choice to stay: splash out water patterns to form words of grief watch a dipper dance away from me   light as air. I visit the years in the looking: see the cedar wrapped in chains, listen for its whispered dream.   There is fear in morning’s song a storm of giants leaping from treetop to treetop breaking branches the shape of a child born of the belly-crevice at the base of the tree a love passage lit by the sun.   Now:   the cataclysm of earth screams: the hurricane, tsunami the bumble of the bee the silence of the humming bird fade to black. Jean Rees-Lyons

‘ Why are you hanging on so long? ’ ‘ I can’t bear the idea of falling. Falling is the end of me. ’ ‘ You’ve been hanging there for weeks now all on your own. ’ ‘ The others all left. One by one. I watched them give up. And fall. ’ ‘ Aren’t you lonely? ’ ‘ Sometimes... then again you learn to embrace the isolation and the emptiness. And the silence of the missing. The ones who’ve left. ’ ‘ But you hung on. ’   ‘ Waiting until I can do so no longer. Till the strength and stubborn-ness is gone and the mind begins to fade. Waiting. In the long moments of waiting just soaking up the sun, tracking it’s fading heat as it moves behind the cloudy skies, letting the rain and the morning mist soak my skin, drenching my soul in wet. Yet, somehow, I always thirst for more. The dry always returns too soon. ’ ‘ The ground is wet. Most of the day now. ’ ‘ Yes, but that’s different. A sinking, invading wet that punctures the skin, bruises and flushes my flesh to pulp. ’ ‘ You jo

  Haeferblaete hiding, Hereward-like, stealthily stalking fish or frog, in reed-fringed channel; stilled, buff-brown-feather-plant-merging. Butterbump's boom, each call one-male marking, invitation card carrying to mate-match over fen's fertile fastness. Bittern, so shy of prying eye, in numbers small, yet symbol large, restored boon-balance, treasure in the land. Paul Middleton Image by Mark Stoop

  If inadequately tied, fixed, fastened or pinned Everything becomes airborne, flails, flaps, and thrashes. Nascent leaves released like confetti whirl along the Bay road, Chase the broken heads of long-stemmed narcissus   That surrender their honey scents to the persistent gale.   My sister and I, at breakfast in a Jersey hotel, Feel the waves thud against the sea wall, then overtop and flood. The spray shimmers with salt and milky froth laced with iodine. We watch, half in dread, half in helpless laughter, As Herring gulls, flung towards the glass, somehow lift and veer.    Barbara Grafton Wind challenge   Image: Montage by Barbara Grafton using Herring gull photograph by Rob Hille via Wikimedia