The dog in the canal and other stories

-
Dear Monty,


Storms.

The dog sleeps with me
At the end of my bed
I snore
And so does he
We cancel each other out

Sue sleeps undisturbed in her bedchamber
Red and sunlit
View over the mountain

Toff and I walk the coal tip
We admire unintended artworks formed by dumped builders rubble
Brick and roof tile cairns
Like graves of ancients



We stroll around the old cemetery at the top of the hill
Graves subsumed by brambles and ash trees
We stop and watch the piglets in the field






I find the grave of a former neighbour
Laid to rest last year
She visited parts of this world I will never see
Now her remains lie here
In this damp plot
Already becoming entangled in brambles
We are soon forgotten




Ebola continues to kill the poor
I go out and rake up leaves
The clouds move fast
Sunlight hits the hills in the distance





-------------------------


29 years together




We strolled around through Herefordshire mists
The gentle rolling hills and vales revealing themselves slowly
The chocolate soil puddled and soft
We pick up leaves of varied hue
Red orange yellow lime and blue




Longhorn bullocks snort in the lower field
Webs glisten on the fences
Ravens follow us from Wales




We stroll around the farm
Entertaining the grandchildren
While lamb roasts






----------------------

After a week of bad decisions
I console myself with Claire
'Walking Home'


----------------------

Going over

Like the garden
I am slowly going over


----------------------


The dog in the canal

The dog dives into the canal
Stuck in the mud
A two-tone whippet

The sluice shut
The canal almost dry

I'm dry like an autumn leaf
I wither
I need the softness of love
But produce thorns

I need berries
But produce spiked fruits

It is a mystery
One too hard to solve
Too painful perhaps
Seeing my own want of depth
I'm as shallow as the draining canal

What is blessing to one
Is a curse to another

----------------------




Yours sincerely

Paul

Comments

  1. Gardener in the Distance23 October 2014 at 11:24

    Ah, Paul, I love "unintended". And I love the humility of your very poetic work, that lets the reader follow you.
    Admitting dryness and spikiness is a sure sign of a fluidity and softness.
    It's the personal in your work that makes it so lovely.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Paul Steer23 October 2014 at 17:32

      Thank you Faisal so very much - it is a true compliment coming from you.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pity the cabbage white

-
Image
Dear Monty, Having seen you protect your newly planted cabbages from cabbage white butterflies - it made me realise that I haven't seen many this year. Despite warmth yesterday - a brief interlude with blue sky and a light wind there was a dearth of butterflies in the coal tip garden. There were honey bees, bumble bees, wasps, hover flies, a gangly legged wasp, one hedge brown, one speckled wood and a common blue - that is all. Oh and a frog sheltering in the shady hosta and a silent peregrine falcon swooping overhead. What has happened to all the insects ? What has happened to all the aphids this year ? Is it just me that is missing them ? I have seen no ladybirds or ladybird larvae - because there have been so few aphids - was it the birds that have snaffled them ? I worry about the lack of insect numbers. We walked through a wild meadow full of meadow cranesbill and meadowsweet with the purple haze of knapweed in the grasses and yet there were one or two meadow br...
Read more

Letter to Monty Don 48

-
Image
Dear Monty, I know that despite these rambles being addressed to you, they never reach your eyes or heart, but this question is most certainly directed to you : Can nature be ugly ? I am pondering this question sitting in my cupboard of a 'studio' where I am putting the finishing touches to paintings of  British native orchids, pollinators and butterflies for an exhibition next weekend. Now I believe that you understand perfectly well the response you may get when you make statements on GW - including the one about spent buddleja flowers being 'ugly'. I too have always deadheaded my buddleja for the same reason, and as you said to promote new flower spikes. But this ugliness is an intrinsic part of nature - it sets seed to create the next generation, the flowers last but for a few days. Is this ugliness a kind of acknowledgement of the frailty of 'beauty' .... and the cutting off and tidying away a kind of denial ? ( Perhaps I think too much.) I ...
Read more

Monty, where does the road take us ?

-
Image
Monty, I see you have returned to France. Your film reminded me of my visits to Paris as an art student between 1981-83. It is a city that cannot fail to make an impression with its wide open streets, avenues of trees, the river and public gardens. I particularly remember Versailles with its long canal. At that time I was not aware of having a particular interest in gardens, but the gardens at Versailles were astonishing. I saw them in early morning light, when there were not that many people there. I also remember being intrigued by the garden at the Musee Rodin. Strangely for an art student, it was not the sculpture that caught my attention but the garden with pyramid shaped topiary. Perhaps what I was responding to was the sense of order, balance and harmony. It almost feels as though I was meant to visit, and that the encounters I had which were sensually intense, were pre-ordained. There is one incident, which has great significance only to me perhaps, but which was of ...
Read more