The wild whoops and daring dives not of the solo violin,

But the rolling tumbling, death defying  lapwings. 

The woodwind section, a haunting of curlew,

their querulous ascent and curdling decline, 

 a wild race of  whistling oystercatchers,     

the redshank that pipes and dips from the wall.  

The choir, an alchemy  of plaintive plover,

banking  gold and white and back to gold again,  

 the skylarks locked in their trilling elevators

and the paragliding squeaking of pipits,

the brass is the honking  pairs of greylag  geese on morning  patrol,

percussion, the  humming, thrumming, drumming of roller coaster snipe. 

All this, while wheatears, that slate and primrose spring  

take silent  ownership  of cup and ring.

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A hesitant dawn, you silence the bells 

And change the scene

with that touch of myth   

that turns every  living thing to ice.

Flakes bristle from every twig,

spicules sparkle like Christmas,

then detach and sink,

swinging through a sunlit sea. 

The trees, decked like brides,

Mock hungry deer with confetti

No celebration here as they clash  

And paw the snow in  their frostration.

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What bowels would not be angered

by what cannot be explained.

There may be no red flags, but you’re

drowning In unpredictable pain. 

.  

Just remember, life is a terminal illness 

and Medicine an inexact  science;

 an exercise in probability. 

In shadow and with occult blood,

the assassin flatters to deceive

.

So what’s the worst?  The surgeon,

Green in mask and gown,  

punctuates your abdomen,    

creates a semicolon, but don’t fret,

it’s not yet a full stop.

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in the bone white dish,

a cargo of garlic;

ten bruise-pink cloves

in a nest  of papery skins,

like dormant commas

awaiting the next sentence.

.

The station clock was at quarter to ten.

I’m going to plant them, you said.

‘They need to catch the first frost, and perhaps,     

 next year,

we’ll cook together.’

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Once a soldier, man of action,

with connections to the King,  

A traveller, he healed the sick 

From Dumfries to Berwick,  

Made miracles

from Durham to Dunbar,

Received acclaim from Rome.  

.

Be our bishop, they cried.  

At first, he denied. 

Too much work,  he replied. 

I need peace, time and space

to converse with the grace 

of God, but don’t mention the ducks,   

We’ll throw in the island, they said,

Bring you breakfast by boat.  

.

You can wash our feet, they said

if that makes you feels good. 

But he waved them his blessings 

And cuddled his ducks instead. 

.

They must have thought Cuthbert was the man of the moment, a born leader, active, wise, understanding and willing to travel.   But he was also widely known for his piety, diligence, obedience and asceticism.   Northumbria extended as far north as the Forth and as far west as Galloway.  Cuthbert travelled the length and breadth of the country,  preaching,  performing miracles and talking to the people.  His generosity and gifts of insight and healing led many people to consult him. He set up oratories and churches throughout the Kingdom and established a reputation for himself and the church further afield.   When Alchfrith, King of Deira, founded a new monastery at Ripon, it was Cuthbert who became its praepositus hospitum or visitors host. He was a leading exponent of the customs of the Roman church at the synod convened at Twyford on the River Aln and also at the synod of Whitby.     

King Eagwith, about whom the great historian Macauley once said, ‘Who?,’  was impressed and prevailed on the Abbot of Montrose to release him to become Bishop of Lindisfarne,  but Cuthbert didn’t want that sort of responsibility.  He liked coming up with ideas, but he needed space to think and contemplate.  He agreed only if he could live for as much time as he needed in solitude on Inner Farne.  Cuthbert loved the sea and had frequently travelled from Melrose to the priories at Lindisfarne and St Abb’s.  It was said that he could communicate with the wild creatures.  The Eider Ducks were so tame they would nest in his hut.  To this day, the locals refer to them as Cuddy’s Ducks. 

But Cuthbert spent more and more time on his remote island.  If anybody, even the King, needed to see him, they would have to get a boat and a pilot and undertake the often perilous journey from the mainland.  At first he would welcome visitors and wash their feet, but later he waved his blessings from the window and returned to his contemplation. Cuthbert preferred the company of his wild creatures to man, but his inaccessibility only added to his reputation for piety.  

He died in his island hermitage and his body was brought back in state to be buried at Melrose.  Some years later, it was exhumed and his beatification was assured when it was found that no decomposition had set in.  It now rests in Durham Cathedral. 

So what kind of man was Cuthbert?   A reluctant leader?.  A man of great promise, who could not deliver; always out for a duck?  A selfish recluse?   This is open to conjecture, but I like to think of him as a scholar, a man of ideas and inspiration, who could be too affected by others’ agendas.  He needed to escape, to cease the chatter, the demands and be alone.  It wasn’t that he was selfish; quite the opposite.  But he was no politician.  He could see everybody’s view and could so easily be compromised.  And he was quite unsuited to administration. Luckily for him the King recognised Cuthbert’s symbolic importance and his retreat to the island just added to the mystique. He even passed a law protecting the ducks.   

I have just completed St Cuthbert’s Way across the Border Country from the abbey at Melrose to Lindisfarne Priory. It crosses the Eildon Hills (the Roman Trimontium), then follows the broad upland River Tweed as far as the crystal well at Maxton,turns south along Dere Street, goes up over the Cheviots to Wooler, gains the sea at Beal and follows the Pilgrim’s Route across the sands to The Holy Isle.

I rubbed up  a whole new crop of blisters and trudged the mud and sand of the Pilgrim’s Route barefoot and bloodshod.  Half way across, the sky darkened and a squall blew in from the North Sea.  It was then that the it started, an unearthly sound as if all the souls of the departed sailors shipwrecked on this coast has been disinterred and were howling in agony.  It came from what looked like a clump of rocks on a distant sandbank. I focused my binoculars and saw between two and three hundred seals, half of them pups.  This would have stirred Cuthbert’s heart and it stirred mine.                           

My feet have healed and I’ve donated my boots to the RSPCA.  Maybe a duck will find them useful.

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it clung, sticky fingered,

to an impossible beam

under a palm leaf thatch. 

and in freeze frame mime,

advanced along a leftwards flank,  

then turned, paused, and

Ignoring the claws,

sprung,

seized,  

crunched,

 grinned

and milked the applause .

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And birds have ceased to call  

When nighthawks glide through misty glades   

And fiery Mars comes up from shades

When fireflies blink and crickets wheeze.

and deer cough deep and owls sneeze  

The sky spreads its carpet of myth

Up ending Orion,

while I, sitting on a stone,

move the branch into the glow and wait   

‘til tousle haired, he brings dazed frogs, which,

steamed with greens, and pungent spice,  

we serve on leaves with sticky rice

and eat with bamboo shots.  .

Nyok!

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A poem and instructions written on the wall of Tuol Sleng internment centre,  Phnom Penh.

No chatting

No laughing

No discussion

No answering back

No opinions

No theatre

No music

No poems

No Literature

No Religion

No priests

No doctors

No lawyers.

No study

No glasses

No football

No games

No playing

No running

No schools

No parents

No children

No brothers

No sisters

No house

No friendship

No flirting

No sex

No love.

No life

 Instructions.

1. You must answer according to my questions.  Don’t turn them away.
2. Don’t try to hide the facts by making pretexts about this and that.  You are strictly prohibited to contradict me, contest me.
3. Don’t be a fool, for you are a chap who dare to thwart the revolution.
4. You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflect.
5. Don’t tell me either about your immoralities or the essence of the revolution.
6. While getting lashes of electrification you must not cry at all.
7. Do nothing.  Sit still and wait for my orders.  If there is no order, keep quiet.  When I ask you to do something you must do it right away without protesting.
8. Don’t make pretext about Kampuchea in order to hide your secret treachery.
9. If you don’t follow all the above rules you will get many lashes of electric wire.
10. If you disobey any point of my regulations you shall get either ten lashes or five shocks of electric discharge.

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the sky deeper.  

Steam rises from the falls,

turns grass stems to prayer flags,

trees into wedding gowns. 

The windows of the big house,

shine gold and

Thomas Payne’s excellent bridge

burns like a biscuit     

against moors of palest pink

Crystal deep,

sparkling deer

join cosy sheep

In a warm circuit of silage,

fermenting an uneasy friendship 

in cloven harmony of hunger.

Flashing red, a woodpicker  

pecks at freezing bark

while Titmice forage,  

out of habit, more than hope,

Spying a discarded raft, I climb aboard

and launch myself down the slope until, 

disgorged in a tumble of laughter,   

I get the drift, use my hands,   

like rockets on a space module

to gain stability but no direction.  

A stranger eyes me by the cattle grid,  

‘I’ve only come for my grandson.’  

I smile like sheep in silage. 

And resolve to buy a sledge.

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I stood naked on the step, in the cold rain

that swept up the valley from the sea,

while you poured warm water

onto the back of my neck and the

shivering skin between my shoulder blades.

Do it again, I cried, and you did

until the laughing bowl was empty

and I ran in to dry by a chattering fire.

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