PLACES

JERUSALEM : GOLDEN GATE : MOORS

CARNAC : ADLESTROP REVISITED : FAIRFORD

JUST A SHORT WALK : TOMB : AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL

JERUSALEM

Numberless histories
Speak from these
Golden walls.
And on them
Time dances
Her endless ritual
Of occupation
And liberation;
Of war and peace.

GOLDEN GATE

The evening sun has turned
This blocked gate of stones to gold.
The light vibrates from the rock.
The past, the present,
The future resonate together.
The Messiah will enter the city here.
In that final day as this gate opens,
And the rocks disintegrate,
Golden dust will shower the King of Glory.

MOORS

The clouds scraped
The sun off the hills;
The green summer heather
Paled to dullness
In this uncertain
And dithering weather.
Heavy with rain
The clouds came towards me,
Bringing a wet, cold sheet.
I closed my eyes
Shutting out the wild world
And embraced the silent shroud
As if in death.

CARNAC

These ancient stones,
Offer me no welcome.
I am an intruder.
I am out of time,
Out of turn, uninvited.
And the stones stand,
Still, silent and patient,
Waiting for me to go.

ADLESTROP REVISITED

Yes. I remember Adlestrop -
The name, because one afternoon
Where the roads forked, we pulled up
To park. It was mid-July

A lady sat on the station bench
Reading in the quiet shade.
No one came and no one went.
Except us, searching for the poem.

We found it, engraved in brass on the seat.
Behind it, the name, Adlestrop.
Only the name. And the silent lanes
Of willow, meadow flowers and grass.

Trains no longer make unwontedly stops,
With poets dreaming through hissing steam.
Only buses. The lady waits and reads
While the birds of Gloucestershire sing.

With apologies to Edward Thomas

BBC

FAIRFORD 

Yes. I remember Fairford -
The place, because one afternoon
On the brow of a hill, at a bend, we pulled up
To park. It was mid-March.

We looked across the flat valley
To the indistinct airfield hidden with trees.
No one came and no one went.
Except us, searching for the black B52's.

We saw them through the trees and the spring haze,
Nine black menacing winged creatures,
Charged with death and by Death
To unleash horror on a world so far away,

So alien to this typical English village
And its silent lanes of budding flowers.
Beneath the distant church tower they pray for peace
While the birds of Gloucestershire sing.

Also with apologies to Edward Thomas

JUST A SHORT WALK : TOMB : AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL

Places : Page Two 

All poems and photographs [unless otherwise acknowledged] 
 © Bryce Cooke  All rights reserved

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