Reverie #2: Magic

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Magic is the catalyst for change 
It stirs the open mind
Bringing meaning to Mystery
Blessings to Belief

And when the cauldron of mist is stirred
Then both the Gloom 
And the Glitter are captured
Restrained
Resuscitated  
Then allowed to flourish

To become hope for the future
Of the world’s Sorcery
The creation of a new reality
The super and the supra-natural essence
Of what has been
The foundation of what will yet be
Channeling the birthright of an abiding
And more fulfilling Necromancy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Autumn Haiku

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Autumn mists appear

Clutching and shrouding our fields

Prompting life to sleep

 

Thoughts On A Morning Mist

‘A Sussex Morning’ … Photo: WHB – October 2017   ©

 

The morning mist that masks my view
Slowly lifts its damask shroud
Then memory comes to lift my mood
Bringing to mind that distant scene
Reminding of what my life has been

For then, before I lost, I’d loved,
And she has meant the world to me
In spring and summer life was good
Till autumn brought its golden glow
Gnarled time revealing what I now know.

That when those masking clouds descend
Proffering winter’s icy blasts
Our world which once held such delights
Tells me that now the time is here
To set aside despair and fear

That what we had and valued most
Was all worthwhile and counted more
Than all the pains which followed on
For life renews itself in hope
And those who follow, they will cope.

The APPLEGARTH

The APPLEGARTH

When morning
meets my melancholy
I must refocus
dispel my clouds
and reconnect to nature
through her glory

The garth gate invites
pledges enchantment
such memories harboured here
once the cloister garden
of my medieval monastery
now still the repository
of the priory’s peace
ancient orchard
now transformed
but still a place
to rejuvenate the soul
to touch
feel and taste
nature’s serenity

   The morning mist
lingered low
over the once fallow fields
then no longer virgin earth
but become thick with apple trees
and those
long gone
and autumn dormant now
awaiting its wheat-carpeted
summer season

The morning advances
only half-appreciated
until the
the priory arch
proud against the sky
bursts through the mist
into the weak sun’s gaze
the veiled sky
allowing
the gathering sunlight
slowly
to prove its strength
and bring clarity
to a waiting world

And The pathway
its ancient course
 piercing its length
into the shrouded distance
remembrancer now
of those Augustinian brothers
traversing
this ancient orchard
who with such care
tended nature’s gifts
now bare of fruit
but never fruitless
no longer cosseted
by priestly presence
and full of nuanced context still

For me …

The Applegarth
my own memory
of this sanctified place
sings of golden corn
bordering that arrowed path
where also was
the winning post
the last gasp
of those long-past
teenage
distance running races
marking my triumphs
measuring my success
against the countless strides
I had wrenched
from my straining body
to accomplish
to lead the race
the end of endeavours
signifying my own
my personal
accomplishment.

The Applegarth,
a trope
my metaphor
for my life.

Photographs by WHB . . . 2016

THE MIST OF LOVE

THE  MIST  OF  LOVE

I fell for a ghost,
A spectre, a wraith,
I grappled to win her
In a wrestle with faith.

A wondrous creature,
A vision in white.
I knew I should leave her,
Beware of her bite.

Her present and past
I struggled to find;
Whatever her story –
I was out of my mind.

I knew nothing of her,
Nor she of me;
So however I tried
It just wasn’t to be.

She sighed with delight
As I caught her sweet breath,
And I knew with a shudder
She’d never trounce death.

For death had imbibed her,
Had taken her in
To its cold winter grasp,
And I never could win.

But her passion was endless.
It left me in dread
Of an endless uncoupling –
A  gift to the dead.

So I severed my heart strings
– Futile to resist.
Yes, my dream was a mirage
… What is love but a mist?

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I n an earlier blog of mine (No.6. published on 1^st August, 2016), I mentioned my love of William Wordsworth’s ‘Lucy’ poems. In another of his poems in similar tender vein, which has also long been a favourite of mine, he begins with the line, which has become the poem’s title, ‘She was a phantom of delight’.  The poem was written about his first meeting with, Mary Hutchinson, a pupil at the same school as William, who eventually became his wife.

The first stanza depicts the woman not as a creature of flesh and blood but as a phantom or an insubstantial being. He calls her an “apparition” that can “haunt, startle and waylay”.

For no particular reason that I am aware of, this set in motion a train of thought suggesting a liaison with a more genuine ‘phantom’, a wraith. The verses above were the result – in no way comparable with the subtleties and delights of Wordsworth’s poem.

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The lead-in photograph at the top was taken by me on a foggy day at the ancient cliff-top church and churchyard of Hawser, near Whitby, on the North Yorkshire coast.  Some adaptations have been made to the photograph.

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