By way of comparison, here is a link to my 1979 free verse poem "The Ridgeway Above Wroughton" posted on this blog on 18 April 2012.
---------------
What is Cornwall but gorse in flower,
Frothing in sud-clouds hour by hour,
Yellow as butter in honey dipped,
Come April when the sun’s wide-lipped
And now-hot smile prompts all that lives
To a vying grapple – one grabs, one gives –
As growth and propagation surge
And fledglings, flowers and crops emerge?
The moors and heaths are a cloth of gold
Billowing to tors by the West Wind strolled,
Rising steep above the slatey towns
Which gaggle their skirts, all greys and browns;
The Western Highway, curved or straight,
Shadows their contour, always in spate
With artics, cars and tradesmen’s vans
Packed with goods or tackle or scrans;
They turn off to the pre-fabbed trading parks
Speared by the rail line with its rushing barques,
Homing on Redruth, Hayle, Penzance,
As granite-solid as a Scottish manse.
And always pressing is the Western Sea,
Never distant, especially
At Castle Chûn, high on the droop
Of Penwith’s toe, where merlins stoop:
Spring-warm blue or gale-scrubbed green,
Two Channels’ waters leap and preen,
Hugging the land, that south or north,
From the gorsy heights, you might plunge forth,
Wind-held, and headlong down to dash
Like Icarus in those waters’ plash.
That gorse in thicket, bush and clump,
Spiny, dusty, green of rump,
Rears six-foot tall, packing its flanks
With two-inch spikes: behind their shanks
The chats and linnets, crimson and pink,
Dodge shadowily, all flutter and jink,
And later, airborne, unstoppable, qweep
Their twittered water-notes, springs then neap.
The bushes’ trunks and fallen twigs –
Whitey-brown barked – pile spines and sprigs
In flaky rubbish, bramble-crept,
And, beak-prodding, by the linnet swept
For nesting things: those thickets’ depths,
As darkling as the silent breadths
Of Norsemen’s forests, nevertheless fling
A flourish of flower that if shrubs could sing
They’d hymn the sky’s tall china-plate blue,
Its arc amplifying the wind’s mew.
What a haul of buttery yolk,
A million pin-points like coins on a cloak:
Arms-length in swathes, tight-clustered with blooms,
The prickled branches like ropes loosed from looms,
Or like lupins or gold-toothed corn on the cob,
Swing stiffly in the wind’s volley and lob.
Unopened, like almonds the flowers clench,
Browned and downy, waiting the drench
Of spring-tide sun. All prompts in place
They flare frankly like a youngster’s face:
The sepals fall back, the petals reach out,
They’re blatant in colour like a new-born’s shout;
Orangely-gawping like nestlings’ throats,
Tempting the wind-knocked bees like motes:
Yellow with fission the gorse is aflame –
All over Cornwall it’s one and the same!
And way back, for May Day the lads gave girls
Luscious gold sprigs to brighten their curls;
And since once in bloom the gorse doesn’t cease
Till December’s end to spread out its fleece,
Like a Troy Town saw which Q-C knew,
Earthy and cheery the old saying’s true:
Kissing’s out of fashion,
When the gorse is out of blossom.
====================
© April 2021
---------------
What is Cornwall but gorse in flower,
Frothing in sud-clouds hour by hour,
Yellow as butter in honey dipped,
Come April when the sun’s wide-lipped
And now-hot smile prompts all that lives
To a vying grapple – one grabs, one gives –
As growth and propagation surge
And fledglings, flowers and crops emerge?
The moors and heaths are a cloth of gold
Billowing to tors by the West Wind strolled,
Rising steep above the slatey towns
Which gaggle their skirts, all greys and browns;
The Western Highway, curved or straight,
Shadows their contour, always in spate
With artics, cars and tradesmen’s vans
Packed with goods or tackle or scrans;
They turn off to the pre-fabbed trading parks
Speared by the rail line with its rushing barques,
Homing on Redruth, Hayle, Penzance,
As granite-solid as a Scottish manse.
And always pressing is the Western Sea,
Never distant, especially
At Castle Chûn, high on the droop
Of Penwith’s toe, where merlins stoop:
Spring-warm blue or gale-scrubbed green,
Two Channels’ waters leap and preen,
Hugging the land, that south or north,
From the gorsy heights, you might plunge forth,
Wind-held, and headlong down to dash
Like Icarus in those waters’ plash.
That gorse in thicket, bush and clump,
Spiny, dusty, green of rump,
Rears six-foot tall, packing its flanks
With two-inch spikes: behind their shanks
The chats and linnets, crimson and pink,
Dodge shadowily, all flutter and jink,
And later, airborne, unstoppable, qweep
Their twittered water-notes, springs then neap.
The bushes’ trunks and fallen twigs –
Whitey-brown barked – pile spines and sprigs
In flaky rubbish, bramble-crept,
And, beak-prodding, by the linnet swept
For nesting things: those thickets’ depths,
As darkling as the silent breadths
Of Norsemen’s forests, nevertheless fling
A flourish of flower that if shrubs could sing
They’d hymn the sky’s tall china-plate blue,
Its arc amplifying the wind’s mew.
What a haul of buttery yolk,
A million pin-points like coins on a cloak:
Arms-length in swathes, tight-clustered with blooms,
The prickled branches like ropes loosed from looms,
Or like lupins or gold-toothed corn on the cob,
Swing stiffly in the wind’s volley and lob.
Unopened, like almonds the flowers clench,
Browned and downy, waiting the drench
Of spring-tide sun. All prompts in place
They flare frankly like a youngster’s face:
The sepals fall back, the petals reach out,
They’re blatant in colour like a new-born’s shout;
Orangely-gawping like nestlings’ throats,
Tempting the wind-knocked bees like motes:
Yellow with fission the gorse is aflame –
All over Cornwall it’s one and the same!
And way back, for May Day the lads gave girls
Luscious gold sprigs to brighten their curls;
And since once in bloom the gorse doesn’t cease
Till December’s end to spread out its fleece,
Like a Troy Town saw which Q-C knew,
Earthy and cheery the old saying’s true:
Kissing’s out of fashion,
When the gorse is out of blossom.
====================
© April 2021
