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Tag Archives: nature poetry

Meadow : the Book

17 Tuesday Jan 2017

Posted by somewhere nowhere in meadow poems, Uncategorized

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meadow poetry book, nature poetry, poetry

It did take quite a long time, I’ll admit – life somehow gets in the way – but the book of poetry is now complete! And while it’s not the right time for real meadow flowering, it feels good to bring a touch of summer to the dreary days of winter.

meadow book shot.jpg

I left the meadow with notebooks full of sketches and scribbles: notes, observations, poem fragments, musings. Then last year I took a week out to go through the notebooks and compile poems. In the process I became re-immersed in the meadow, this time from afar, and I was struck by a simplicity and richness of just being among the flowers, day after day. I hope this has come through in this collection.

 

I have become a flower watcher
brought to my knees to my belly
lie flat lie still
here with the touch
of light and weather
and the truth of daisies
tracking the sun

 

The book is just over 60 pages long, and has been printed in a limited edition print run of 160. The poems are at its heart, and  there’s a section on the history of the meadow as well the collection of flower names dreamed up by people who visited while I was there. Each book is hand finished with hand colouring on the beautiful illustration (done by the brilliant artist Kate Gilman Brundrett).

If you would like a copy (£10 plus £1.50 p&p) please follow this link to the shop page on the somewhere nowhere website.

oxeye daisy in meadow

 

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After the cut

10 Monday Aug 2015

Posted by somewhere nowhere in landscape poetry, poetry

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friends of the lake district, nature blog, nature poetry

meadow notebookThis weekend in the meadows, the change was extreme. Cut low, the valley’s delicate face was pale, as if shaved by a razor. Vast swathes of yellow green seemed empty, but when I looked closer, the stubble was strewn with remains: yellow rattle cases, shriveled clovers, desiccated daisies.

The edges and slopes that escaped the cut are still covered with long grasses, harebells, betony and meadowsweet, all battered by the racing August wind that shouts life into them.

betony

betony

I had hoped to be around for the cutting of the grass and when I heard that it had gone ahead in a dash to beat the rain I felt sad. I was somehow attached to watching the cut. I felt it was an important part of my time with the meadow, and would mark a closing.

I arrived at the lay-by on the A6 with a sense of emptiness and melancholy. But I surprised myself. In the simple act of walking down from the road to the slow quiet of the riverside path, with butterflies playing light and shade above the grasses and dragonflies rising stiffly into the sun, my mood lifted. The Borrowdale Valley has never failed to infuse me with sense of peace and fullness.

When I crossed the bridge and approached the gate into the meadow, I came to a line of frayed linen canvases. They have been subjected to a particularly wet and windy August but are mostly still legible. I carefully took them from the fence, and put them in my bag.

faded bunting in high borrowdale meadow

Through the gate I paused. In the green between me and the barn my mind’s eye saw the fullness of daisies, knapweed, sedge, hay rattle, clover, sorrel … but they have had their day. They have shed their seeds and now sit tight in plastic black wrap ready to nourish the Wilson’s herd over winter.

The gates to the meadow are open and this year’s growing lambs are welcome to stroll on in and will soon begin to nibble and fertilise the ground. The valley is still alive with birdsong and the uncut fringes of the meadows are abundant. I lay down low beneath the heads of grasses and flowers being thrashed by the wind. Tormentil has spread, taking over spaces once covered in bedstraw. Canary-yellow vetch is thriving. Meadowsweet is spreading its heady smell (although you have to get close, with the wind as it is, whipping the air away so fiercely). Some yellow rattle has yet to dry and release its seeds.

I retraced the steps I had taken so many times in July, walking towards the derelict High Borrowdale farm beneath the sycamores. When I arrived, I felt a familiar sense of gentleness and peace in the enclosed farmyard (now a nettle garden / moth nursery). I pulled up a chair, sat down and took out a snack – a ritual breaking of bread with the valley – and then simply sat and watched, listened, felt.

For my last visit to the toft (farmstead) I wanted to pause and reflect. I must have been sitting for an hour, writing, watching the sky, staring at the single tree that breaks the skyline high on the fell beyond the first field, listening to the sheep, listening to the wind. The wind plays many tunes: a solid rush in the pine plantations on the other side of the valley, low gusts along the wall around the barn, soft rustles in the sycamores above. It’s enough to keep me, at least, entertained for quite some time!

Eventually I locked the barn door for the last time.

high borrowdale barn lockedI walked back into the meadows, gathering in frayed and faded bunting, rereading what others have added to it over the last few weeks. I took the herdwick wool that the bunting was pegged to and wrapped it around the stone gate post – it will last at least a year, if left alone.

I walked along the track between the meadow fields, slowly, my gaze taken to the fringes still rich with flower. I walked into the open fields, unobstructed, and felt them flat and sharp beneath my feet. Guilly (energetic spaniel), ran as if he’d never run before, head down, mindlessly chasing the scent of rabbits. I walked around the pile of black bags containing the meadows’ flowers and grasses. I didn’t expect the black bags to be singing – the wind tugged and pushed at loose ends of plastic, and squeezed into the gaps between bales like an insistent, curious toddler, making low howls and groans as it did.

sileage bags
One last time, I had to go down to the river. It have spent many an hour there, reflecting on what I have written, filling notebooks. I wanted to sit on the cool boulders one last time, listen again to the watery symphony, and look through the bridge which frames the river and the line of fells beyond.

I used the last of the wool on which bunting had hung to wrap a stone, and then hid it. This may last three or more years, staying quite still while the seasons change and the valley’s colours brighten and fade. I will be back to find it.

stone woven with meadow memories

Now that I’ve finished visiting the meadow, the next stage is to bring my writing together. And make some new paper – I am boiling up dried ex-meadow to combine with new paper as I write. Please excuse a pause while I do this …

 

 

A written meadow

23 Thursday Jul 2015

Posted by somewhere nowhere in meadows, nature, poetry, wild flowers

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meadows, nature poetry, wild flower names, wild flowers

New flower names are coming in for me to play with. I will be making a 3D poem, mimicking the layers of the natural meadow. For now, here’s a peep at some of them.

new wildflower names

Names have been contributed by people I have met in the meadow, by children from Tebay school, through twitter, facebook and email. I’m looking forward to pulling them all together.

For comparison, here are the old flower names, taken from the ecological survey of High Borrowdale meadow, with a few of my own thoughts interspersed.

wild flower names

And my previous posts about names on this blog are here and here.

If you’d like to become part of the growing meadow, please get in touch. You can use the comment box here, or send a tweet to @harrietwrites, #newflowernames.

Thank you!

Open Meadow, Open Minds

11 Saturday Jul 2015

Posted by somewhere nowhere in cumbria, poetry, wildflowers

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cumbria meadows, nature poetry, poetry blog, wild flower meadows

The meadow is always open. A public path runs alongside Borrow Beck taking you into the heart of the valley. But not many people come – this is a hidden gem of Cumbria. When I invited a group of adults in to share the space and explore poetry, everyone left with smiles and inspiration. I included a playful poem that was uncovered while we were sitting under the sycamore trees in my last blog post.

poetry day in High Borrowdale meadow
The day after that leisurely sun-kissed poetry sharing, thirty children from Tebay school walked in to High Borrowdale. They arrived at the first meadow gate after more than an hour’s walk, fizzing and buzzing with energy. They seemed to have pushed the early morning mist westwards in their wake and as the day got warmer, their curiosity grew.

school children in High Borrowdale

The young meadow detectives hunted out flowers, conjured up rich descriptive terms for them; they stopped and listened, and made sound maps; they drew and wrote on bunting; they ran from clegs.

poetry bunting High Borrowdale meadow

And together, they wrote a poem. It contains a line – or two – from every child:

Meadow Poem, written by children from tebay school, July 2 2015

Marvellous meadow
Beautiful flowers, beautiful life
Massive meadow, rocky rocks
Here we are.

Marvellous meadow
Stands out from far away
Luminous colours, yellow as the sun
Or a Giraffe.

Twittering birds, rustling trees,
Red clover, a million fireworks
Gorgeous Guilly, he’s asleep
Cute as a baby.

And the grasses wish in the wind,
Swishing wind, blowing wind, whistling
And the flowers, they never hide
Never hide from their beauty.

Walls like stony ribbons
Meadow rocks, smashing together
And the plip-plop of pebbles
Falling in the stream.

But the cleggs are monstrous
And the midges menacing
They suck your blood
With their bites.

Magnificent landscape
Tall trees, growing like a whale
Or the yellow submarine
On the hill in Borrowdale.

Terrific trees and buzzing bees,
And scattered around us
Here at our feet, red clovers
Like juicy strawberries.

Buttercups shining like the sun
Oxeye daisies like fried eggs
And eyebright,
A group of lonely stars dancing.

Beautiful features fill our hearts
The clegs are so annoying
But not quite as annoying
As two sisters.

And here, when all is quiet
We sit and listen, we sit and listen
To the birds, to the wind,
To the sounds all around.

And then we come to the end
And the meadow will end
When the flowers are cut
And we run home through bugs.

poetry bunting High Borrowdale meadow Cumbria

Entering the meadow

25 Monday May 2015

Posted by somewhere nowhere in meadows, poetry

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cumbria meadows, nature poetry, walt whitman poet

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars

So said Walt Whitman, the American writer whose poetry about the natural world carries a gentleness and an honesty, and paints the world through words.

His work will be among a selection of poetry I’ll be sharing in High Borrowdale Meadow during July, and through this website.

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recent posts

  • Meadow : the Book
  • Working offline
  • Let’s not get too romantic
  • After the cut
  • Process
  • A written meadow
  • A new word
  • New Names
  • Open Pages
  • What’s in a name?

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