Opened Earth

Way back in the 1970s, walking along a railway path (between Raynes Park and Wimbledon in southwest London) on a wet autumn day I was struck by the rich and pungent odour seeping from a newly-dug hole which someone had gouged beside the path for some reason. The phrase, "the pungent smell of opened earth" came immediately to mind and I thought it would make a good start for a poem. That phrase has been in my mind all these decades and finally - finally! - in 2024 I used it to create the poem below. The larger nine-line stanzas are written using a loose blank verse. The "Addendum" was an afterthought to use up lines one and five which originally were meant to be part of the main poem but did not survive to the final draft.

   An earlier poem (written in July 1979) and based on close looking is "The Old Stone Wall, Honey-Red." I posted it on 25 April 2012 and it is linked here 

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      The pungent smell of opened earth,
         Freshly turned and churned,
      It stings the nose like smoke from the hearth
         Or furzes newly burned.

Walking the railway path in autumn-tide
I found a fresh-dug hole some worm collector
Had turned in the damp black leafy loam banking
The path. That tart-aroma’d rotting, fecund
Of ooze and seep, trickled a sheen of wet
Which puddled the gouge. That reek, that sour and sweet
Unripeness, dank and tingling like an acid,
Yet hinted bitingly at a rich fulfilment
Next year in spring’s resistless bloating-forth.

      All’s closing, crumpling; comes a sleep
         Uneased, deprived, diseased:
      Winter’s a time when the creatures weep,
         Neeps with snow are fleeced.

Winds needle through the bare boles of frosted trees.
Climbing the combe, couch-grass beneath foot crunches
Like plastic sheeting. Clouds, leaden as gangrene,
Compress this cliffside gash, so that plant, creature,
Must starve in a freezing death-daze, grubbing shreds,
Day-long, within winter’s blackened, snow-smeared grip.
At combe’s top, smallholding man, denuded of work,
Stirs roots in his cookpot, brooding on his land-toil
Once earth’s year’s-end ice crust has thinned and split.

      Water and chiffchaff prattle joyly –
         Here’s cakes and mating, maidens!
      What plant or creature foots it coyly
         When sun’s restored their Edens?

As if a womb disgorged its groping bairns
A’sudden, spring’s a shouting, swollen fact;
There’s shoots, leaves, buds, all’s wetly warm, and lust
Of coupling frictions the agog woods and fields.
Already, thought of summer’s fleshpot months,
Of corn and beef, juices the mouth; and evenings,
Delighting in hum and stir, open like hands.
Hasten to live! gulping sun’s feeding, for soon
His prime’s decayed; autumn’s first leaf will fall.

Addendum

Winter’s a roar of gale and sodden snow,
Sobered, I question everything I know.

Then spring comes dancing with a primrose tint,
Its meaning’s hidden, readable as flint.

Through summer’s golden months the corn grows fat,
At last I found the truth, then smelt a rat.

And now in autumn’s damp and chill decay,
I mourn we live alone and end as clay.

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© October 2024

Lyric: Autumn to Summer

I have always greatly liked Sir Walter Scott's little poem "Proud Maisie." I thought I would give young Maisie a happier outcome, albeit inclusive of the pains of childbirth. Also, I wanted to try and write a lyric with something of the lightness but also depth of felt experience in Shakespeare's unmatchable lyrics. I'd be astonished if I succeeded. 

   "Bake first fruits loaves" is a reference to Lammas day (Loaf Mass day) on 1 August, when Mass was offered using the first bread baked from the wheat harvest of the year.

   A more stately (syllabic) lyric is "Though the Weekday Go," written in 1976 and posted on 5 July 2013. It is linked here.

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What’s this! The oozy reek of rained-on earth,
      It sets my nose a-twitch,
   And autumn’s apples, girl’s-cheek red,
      Make lusts and loins to itch!
   So grab your girl – here’s tease, here’s mirth!
   For winter’s freezings kill all pleasings,
      And that’s a truth well said!

What’s winter? Maisie’s window piled with snow,
      And spring’s her sleepy yawn,
   But sun’s months urge the wheat to swell –
      And Maisie swells with spawn!
   Bake first fruits loaves, dance fast, dance slow,
   For summer’s breezings force womb’s easings –
      Lord, Maisie’s lungful yell!

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© September 2024

The Days of Old

Technical details: a shared rhyme links the penultimate line of each stanza with the first line of the following stanza. To round things off, the last two lines of the final stanza share a half-rhyme.

   A much earlier poem on the "what's it all about?" theme is "The Hedgehog in the Garden," written in July 1980. As such it is not a "summation" or a "looking back" because it was written by a much younger man; it's more of a speculation. It was posted on 14 July 2012 and is linked here.

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   The days of old were never cold,
      The sun shone on and on,
And heat haze simmered on both coast and wold
   In glassy light glints never done.
   Thoughtless we are of days as lived:
You never know they’re good until they’re gone.

   What’s left when age has closely sieved
      All loves and memories
Are glows like sun’s warm shafts in leafage weaved
   (But aches at hands we failed to seize):
   Days are like fruit now fresh, now bruised,
You never know they’re good until they’re gone.

   Ruses and lusts, perhaps excused
      For that’s what lovers do,
Enjoined a trysted life of bodies fused,
   Of whelps and duties, laughings too:
   Like rueful scarecrows are our days,
You never know they’re good until they’re gone.

   Even ill-luck, a smash, a blaze,
      Much worse, a dear one’s death,
In time will cultivate our coping ways,
   For breath is better than no breath:
   Our days can soothe the pain they cause,
You never know they’re good until they’re gone.

   Seek what’s intense then, licking sores,
      Live as the creatures live,
Hourly aware of chance’s gifts and claws,
   The “now” which only Time can give;
   For soon days’ truths will sink to one:
You never know they’re good until they’re gone.

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© September 2024