The Steps I Tread

Photo: WHB – Thames Towpath: Dec.2020

Trudging the towpath
I come across an
intriguing puzzle path
these hieroglyphs of passage
arrest my motion
defying disturbance
and imposing their mystery
to impede my progress

Now I fear to tread
to de-sanctify their presence
and destroy their meaning
with my care-less trudge

These disguised but so readable signs
I am unable to fathom
greater skills than I have
are required to tell the story
of who, of what
has gone before
and of how I have come
to where I am

However fraught
I remain
caught
in an indecipherable
present
struggling to construe
just what Now means

Mystery abounds
these cuneiform cartouches
defeat my urge for understanding
and I pass on
adding my own meaning
only by the steps I tread

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