A frosty morning at Entwistle

Story

And so the story goes

But not for the want of telling

And the ice still grows

Upon the dead of night

Waiting for the sun

To break its covetous fingers

And where is the unicorn now

When our time is all but spent

When sighs break like farts

Upon the new morning airs

And if there is no more hope

There is always tea and sympathy

And it is just enough now

To guide a star fallen to earth

Back up into the heavens 

It must be...

It must be Christmas soon; all the lights are out and switched on. Is there any shop out there that is not having a 'Black Friday' sale. Methinks the frenzy is hiding some very weak sales. Here is a picture of the House of Fraser store in Manchester that I took last week. Very colourful but mid-November - really!

Heretics

Radical heads cleaved and conspirator hung

From out of dark, tortured confession sung

And never imagine our malice cannot return

That on high pyres, witches again may burn

After all, only eight christening gowns ago

Heretics were destroyed upon a fiery inferno

Now scarce we can believe that we did such ill

But remember in other lands, it happens still

Here they wait for the dark days to reappear

To hunt down the weak, the free and the queer

Liberty is a currency each generation must earn

Only vigilance can stop the archaic night's return 

Invisible

I need no longer hide in the world trembling

Lest I am discovered and asked to participate

Time has wrought this splendid thing upon me

I, decaying spectre of aged imperceptibility

A latent force; no longer any catalyst of chance

Walk slower now there is no fear of attention

I have time to watch rain fall in gentle elegance

For I am at last become invisible to all others

I move naked and unafraid through the world

An autumn wanderer among thickening mists

Where care and worry dissipate on resignation

I become a resting dove that shelters from cold

Stilled into such appreciative wonder and calm

Though it took a lifetime, I am in the end saved

With time enough for one last incorporeal flicker 

Well

And what is made well; endures

For we are not well provisioned

And now merry is as merry will

When our empty fields need no till

For now the winter finally holds sway

It is indoors we come to make play

Reflection

Some pictures from my walk around Entwistle reservoir the other day

Undone

Comes now the quiet time

In this decay of illumination

In the shrinking days

We flee to our comforts

To fires and hearty repast

But where firelight perishes

Where heat will not reach

To gloomy corners and nooks

Returns there the time of ghosts

That sit within quiet shadows

They brood and murmur regret

To prick late upon conscience

And look you well  

At what you have done

In the dark of a winter's night

When fairness was forsaken

And all they accomplished undone

Winter is Coming

Summery autumn is finally overcome

The eastern winds and cold have won

They take the days and shake the trees

Conceal the birds and kill all the bees

Under skeletons of bare wood we now play

Looking up into foreboding skies of grey 

Monica Waddington (1931-2016)

A shadow has fallen upon us

Naught can be made whole again

Though I am forever undone

No shadow will be upon you today

And though tis a sweet deception

All things grievous will seem repaired

And time will attest my resolve

When wood and fields yield;

Deep skies less blue than my mood

But now is not the time to feel sad

For all shall be ended well

I will wrap my goodbyes in gold

And lay red roses upon your carriage

For you have been remade

To be reunited with your love

And though this loss is bitter to me

I say goodbye knowing you are in joy

Gold

This is the finest gold though perhaps you do not count it yet as a worthy treasure. Yet when the days fall into ruin and the sea rises above your defences in the autumn of your existence you will see that the greatest treasures were ever about you; if you had, only but looked up. 

Red

It must be autumn as the Amanita muscaria, commonly known as the fly agaric is growing in huge patches around Entwistle reservoir. They never get to full maturity as people always destroy them, but you would have to eat a lot to poison yourself. It is a hallucinogenic first and foremost, which thinking about it actually might explain a lot. I wish they would grow in my garden as they add a feeling of enchantment and colour to contrast against the decay of the season.

What grows in autumn between wall and wood?

Rises from the night in a fresh-dewed awakening

Tis a red opulence that blooms like fortunate treasure

A scarlet caveat and yet welcome sign the world is well

And is there not a comfort to see such dangerous things

For if, we are to be made safe from everything harmful

Then tomorrow may wait for its protected correlation

For no wonders in crimson disguise would ever come  

War

I think, therefore I am

But if I would use flesh to live

I become a thinking fiend

And thinking makes untruths

And I have thought up such lies 

With my dimming finite sentience 

Infinitesimal and vulnerable

Ere compassion could coalesce clarity

And we could never live long enough

Not even if we had a thousand years

To see what monsters we are become

And this is the tragedy of man

In his war against the animals 

Surely it is time to make a peace