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Sunday 1
November 2015
November
heath at twilight and the fog
Is
sodden-thick, like wadding stuffed around
The
looming gloom of beech and chestnut trees,
Gone
vague as distant mountains; vista is
Destroyed,
there’s only thick miasma, brown
As
rats’ fur, clumping greasily on the grass.
Within
that bulging mucous murk, made fawn
And
grainy by the orange village lights,
There’s
a sound of giggling girls and barking dogs
But
nothing seen.
In
minutes I’m alone,
Walking
the metalled track to the incline’s lip
Which
sinks into the woods. The village lights
Are
distant, fading fast. A racing dog
With
winking collar angles through the fog –
A
shrouded walker follows with a torch;
They
meld into the bilious gloom. My footsteps
Crackle
and die. This mild moist night, I sweat.
The
clammy lychgate creaks; I pass into
The
woods, descending into coal-black dark.
The
leaf-fall crunches underfoot but makes
No
difference to the swelling touch-felt silence.
Tramping
the sandy bridlepath, night sight
Of
sorts develops, though all it manages
Is
grey mass told from dark mass; hint and squint
Are
used to guess the fog crowding the crowns
Of
oak and maple, tamping every fissure
With
a sheeny sponge that’s matt and grubby to
The
eye. And weird, at waist, outleaning mounds
Of
rotting ferns define themselves as grey
And
use-blanched dishcloths.
At the wood’s black depth
I
leave the mud-sand path and strike into
The
trees; I have the untracked route by
heart
But
all is changed by the cloud-thick darkness, brewed
By
the bundling fog, infilling vistas used
In
night sight to adjudge felt place and distance.
And
since my last walk leaf drop has occurred
So
that a sour-sharp mulch of birch and ash
And
oak leaves, shrouding every half-hint waymark,
Has
merged with trunk-trapped fog to make a screed
Of
indirection that’s unreadable.
Stymied,
I search that sludge-like dark for glims
Of
fallen birch boughs, used to point my way;
Mole-blind,
I miss them, shambling warily
In
arcs to find a route; shins, knees and
hands
Scour
bush and bramble, flesh-stung, till at last
By hope and instinct in that flea-brown sump,
I
fetch up panting on a stream’s wet bank.
As if with cataract, I foot-feel hints
For
the double plank across, now lost in
leaf-pile
Which
also swamps the stream; eventually,
I
ease across, toe-led and darkness-blind.
On
the far bank with step and step and squint,
I
track the stream until the woodfloor slopes
And,
thankful to respond, I turn uphill
Through
tree stands clogged with solid palls of night
So
that sensation is an only guide –
That
instinct-memory that shifting masses
Truthfully
tell the way. Short-breathed, ache-limbed,
Such silence, stillness! Nothing moves except –
A
constant dripping in the dark-hid crowns
As
fog condenses, skeltering to ground
In
pocks of sound made sharp and
brittle in
The
mind as atoms’ blows though nothing’s
felt.
There’s
whiff of damp, and rotting leaves, and black
Rich
earth wetly devouring stalk and twig.
But
what’s to see? Only a blackout
merged
By
looming behemoths of pall on pall;
It's
only in arm’s length that eye can
tell
Tree
trunks or bushes and upended branches,
And
those but vaguely. The fog’s unseen,
by mind
Divined
as a dour puce blanket gripping all
And
melding everything to a flat-faced blank.
I set off back, wielding a foot-found stick
To
ward off branches and ankle-trapping roots;
It’s toe-touch work again by prod and
step.
At
incline’s base the darkness is intense
And
forces thought that tramping on such
nights
With
neither torch nor mobile, doused in fog,
Tempts
fate to snap a leg or twist a foot.
Regardless,
staggering, I find the stream
And
inch across the planks, misfooting at
A
crawl the rise back to the forest track.
Such
subfusc darkness! Fisting through dense shrouds,
Tripping
on sink holes left by roots or fox
Or
rabbit dens, my language rips the air.
Then
forced to standstill, finding
billowed bushes
Clutching
my face and arms, brute-mindedly
I
thrust a way, accepting wounds, for here’s
No
place for stalemate, lost from all direction.
At
last I sense a lightening in the murk,
A
streak I push towards for that’s the track,
Its
sandy bed’s half-glimmer all the help
A
man can pray for in this bruising dark.
Winded, sore-kneed, I gain the path and
start
Uphill,
seeking the lychgate and the heath.
The
path’s vague width bisects the forest crown
And
in that cave-black chasm I can glimpse
The
obfuscating fog sunk down among
The
trees in dust and rubble folds, choking
All
sight of clouds or stars or moon. Fatigued,
I
scour my hot-skin brow, bemused to find
My
hair and skull adrip with condensation
Though
dry behind. Likewise my clothes: they’re sheened
At
front with dew and chilly-dry at back.
And
so the lychgate, after steady walking,
Emerges
from the night like off-white bones
Cluttered
across the track. I pass its bar
And
walking wearily across the heath
I
turn to gaze upon the sombre dark
From
which I’ve sprung.
I made the walk to feel
The
fog’s effect sumped in the night-struck woods,
But
found the deeper darkness it imposed
Obscured
the fog itself, and monochrome
Miasma,
quite impervious, was all
There
was to see. Now staring at that wall
Of
wood-enfolding black it seems absurd
That
for an hour I’ve staggered doggedly
Through
tracks and glades, opaque as deep-earth mines,
This
night when neither fox nor owl nor stoat
Has
stirred or screamed, so stunned has the fog thrown them.
I
face about to find the village lights
Pricked dully at track’s end like creatures’ eyes;
The
huge phenomenon of fog makes small
My
person scuffing on the dusty road:
The
plenitude of brick-black billowing,
Tall-reaching
to the unseen sky, the merge
Of
black, brown, bruise and purple in a thickness
Unbroachable
and nitric as bad air,
Cows
the night-walker and sends me shuffling to
The
village bound where with a final glance
At
that wall-thick, brown-depth massif which engulfs
The
wood, I turn into the village streets
To
lose myself inside their crock of light.
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Addendum for All
Saints Day
What
sooth man creeps the woods at dark,
Leaf-footing from
the forest path,
Alert
should night-black bush or tree
Resolve
the silence with a mark
Of
sound: or did a she-fox laugh?
Oh
saints in heaven, pray for me.
In
blank-eyed dark, on wet-stenched
earth,
Leaf-clutched
beneath an oak’s black caul,
What’s
crueller than necessity?
A
lunge is but a finger’s girth
Away:
or did a tree branch fall?
Oh
saints in heaven pray for me.
Through
soul’s dense fog a way is wrought,
Leaf-troubling like
a fever’s dream;
This
cloud-damp night provides no key;
A
touch on skin, the stumbler caught
His
breath: or did a raven scream?
Oh
saints in heaven, pray for me.
====================
Both poems ©
November 2015