During the first week of our Land Journey throughout the day we would take time to stop, consider, condense and write contributions to a communal Renga. Upon our return Malcolm spent an evening with Poet Linda France going through the lines written in the purple book. I hope you will agree that they give a rich flavour of our journey. Rengas work best if they are read aloud, perhaps with two people reading alternative verses.
A big, big thanks to Linda for putting her time and poetic sensibility in putting this together and to all of our participants for being wonderful.
Dreaming the Land
Footsteps treading the path
dappling of sun on fields
the relief of connection
ferns unspiral their tango
trees sway to the beat
ten thousand whisperers
heads bent in crowds
of wind and light
Eric arrives in the dark
fire burning bright
Farne-freckled flights of birds
lace the land
sea and sky together
mew of swerving gulls
joy!
*
tiny model world
river curves seawards
cloud shadows creeping
alone and together
bless the synchronicity
fluttering wings
tumbling grouse
calls to its mother
mist covers the heart
blown away by my tears
come from the sea
Darwinian shrine
to civilized settlement
stone-ringed fortification
or grand palace with a view
every generation
heaves up Humbleton Hill
seeking sheep sorrel
I cannot take my eyes off
Old Redpath’s scrapyard
the curlew’s calls
blown to the sea
before wing arrives
walking in silence
we walk more together
wriggling between rocks
wind fierce in our hair
horizon surrounds us
basin of stones
gathering past and present
sit and watch life
before this grass grows
from the sand of your grave
*
fallen stone
purpose beyond memory
I am a link
in a line of silent people
snaking through heather
below Cheviot and Hedgehope
bobbing heads of cotton
*
cold toad
squatting in my palm
gone in a jump
lost knowledge
marks on rocks
stop for breath
lark looks
into my eyes
the voice of the wind
words blown like chaff
slow airs on the hill
a bee conducts
interrupts
coffin with black bones
monks carry the memory
time shrinks
we are lighthouses
holding the space
you can’t stay cross
with a hill for long
*
unearthed we tread
iron and bronze
hinged histories
make your engine kind
yield to nature as steel
under the pit-sawn oak
aisle of scutched stone
solace of deep silence
her earlobes zipped
lime green to match her trousers
cooked or raw
behind closed eyes
my tongue tastes the world
barbed wire fence
mimicking the gorse
lift the latch
one hand touches, then another
striding through
metal and fire, ephemeral sisters
born from coolness, rock and tree
Divining the past
Now we are listening
Ancestors calling
how did it happen?
what was it like?
today’s winged warriors
steel birds stoop
take bearings from hilltop cairns
like those before me
I carry a ring, a knife, a clasp
*
I am part of this land
which keeps on giving
forgiving
in paradise insincerity
clogs my throat
flowers – feast for the eyes
we leave a trail of flattened stalks
a collective gasp
children, grass seeds
scattered across the earth.
A Walking Renga –
from Fenham Grange Farm, near Lindisfarne,
to Lady’s Well, Holystone,
30th June – 5th July, 2013.
Participants:
Peter Andreson, Rachel Bollen, Emma Bowers, Tom Butterly, Marg Craig, Malcolm Green, Neil Diment, Geof Jackson, Georgiana Keable, Steve Lancaster, Gail Lawler, Eric Maddern, David Metcalfe, Eka Morgan, Pat Renton, Wilf Richards, Ali Safari, Andrew Sclater, Ruth Thompson.
