Tuesday 29 January 2013

Birds Were Singing in the Dawn

Cold Winter Blues

I woke up this morning,
cold winter blues all round my head.
Woke up this morning,
cold winter blues all round my head.
If you don’t leave me woman,
I’ll make you wish that you were dead.

I woke up this morning
snow was lying all around.
Woke up this morning,
snow was lying all around.
Until the ice is melted
there ain’t no road back to town.

I woke up this morning,
birds were singing in the dawn.
Woke up this morning,
birds were singing in the dawn.
If you ain’t careful, woman,
you’re going to wake and find me gone.

Wednesday 23 January 2013

Huldra-Folk

The word 'huldra' means hidden, or cloaked, and the huldra-folk of Scandinavian mythology are the elves or trolls which live in the quiet places on the fells or in the forests. There are roads in Iceland which bend to avoid elf-rocks.Once upon a time I wrote a novel in which a charismatic but ruthless poet wrote a collection of poems which he called Huldra-Folk. I think this was his equivalent of G.K.Chesterton's 'silent people'- the working class -("We are the silent people/and we have not spoken yet"). The novel was set in the seventies, and this guy was not above using a fashionable political motif to get publicity, though his actual politics were laissez-faire to the point of callousness. However, I gave up writing novels long ago, and it recently occurred to me that I should probably write the poems myself.

They aren't going to be left-wing poems, at least not on purpose, and I think some people might not see them as political at all, but just as the Feminist movement of the 80s used to say that the personal was political, we might want to think nowadays that the environmental is political. Certainly issues about food security, land use and ownership, energy generation and conservation are all going to become overtly political in the next few decades. But I'm looking in a wider, but more subjective way, at what's 'hidden' in our environment - the secret wildlife in our gardens, in our cities, in our thinking. It's fascinating. And I've just finished the first few poems.

I can't show them here, not even in draft form, because I want to send them somewhere, but I'll let you know how they get on.

Monday 7 January 2013

The First Territory Walk of 2013

This mild weather has brought out the yellow flowers of winter. Who knew?

I started a spring cleaning in the herb patch and the greenhouse.

And I brought the tiniest possible sprig of wirchhazel into the house. It smells amazing - a cosmetic, slightly medicinal smell, incense and primroses and maybe soap.

I made the first territory walk of the year, just about dusk, and a skein of pink-footed geese was heading over the fields and down the Hillfoot Road towards Alloa. The Ochils looked serene and peaceful as the quiet night came in. I am hoping this will be the first of many walks this year, and lead to a lot more poems!

If you were thinking about entering the Red Squirrel Poetry Competition and didn't get round to it, you now have another month to do it. The closing date has been extended to the 31st January. Good luck, everybody!