Devon dreaming (Sara Firman Dec. 2011)
From my soul sister's feathered nest
under the church bell at the top of town
I took the charmed high street down
to where river and railway ran
right to the Steam Packet Inn:
a compulsion felt as soon
as the story was told
over cappuccino and a fur hat.
'Old Chinese' squawked in my eager ears
words of wisdom on the ocean winds
seagulls telling fishy fortunes.
Who'll dare to dive deeper
into the darkened waters?
Appropriately, wet clouds
gathered overhead and
I followed the Green Man.
Up the winding track towards his hills
running with rivulets of night rains
hummocky as a hobbit's haven.
The old drive to Sharpham
and the spiral stair where
once we stood together
with Innana and toned
our unschooled harmonies.
I couldn't have been happier there
when the steamer came chortling along
tracing the silver ribbon to the sea.
Nothing as lovely as West
Country winter clouds
lit by a soaked sun.
On the far hillside
cows glowed in the grass
Their hooves where the rainbow landed.
Absorbed in glistening pastoral peace
it took a while to fit curve and curve
together making a wedding arch
a perfect bow of bright rain
over the clustered town
so that at that point
I knew I was blessed.
Agape (by Sara Firman Dec. 2011)
My fairy godmothers, kind and wise
in their three-score years and ten,
let the purposeful poetess
out at the foot of the tor -
then circled its dragon's tail
to the rural life museum,
happily out of the rain.
Still, the spell is more powerful
when the green levels are misted -
and somewhere above the flatlands
Avalon is dreaming your shadow
crossed over her soft skirts
slipped into the folds
and never returned.
I began to climb my own smile
into the clouds I remembered,
breathing longed-for strides -
and was soon resting my back
against the old stone,
warm out of the wind
When a love song drifted out to me
on the strings of a hidden folklore
more beautiful than I'd have hoped -
and on the hill beyond,
sheep grazed improbably
around a green heart.
I wrote both these poems in the space of an hour at dawn on 30 December 2011 back in my Ozark forest, having woken with the first stanza of the first one bright on my mind. They highlight the feeling of loving healing that accompanied my return visit to England after a space of four years, the longest I've ever stayed away. Some of you may be able to guess the places they describe ... ?
See also Belonging: a poem written on a train journey from Bath to the sea near Totnes in spring 2007.
