Of Stars and Crabs

Summer sunset stains petal pink waters of Wye,

   swans sail slowly to isles of grand dreams,

willows whisper farewells to the dusk darkening sky,

   rippling purple and sapphire reams.

All is silent awhile cloaked in shadowy sleep,

   rustling reeds rest serenely and still,

’til the hour of the infinite eyes starts to peep,

   speckling gold upon river, wood, hill.

Each sphere turns and some harmony hums through the night,

   casting smiles on most slumbering souls,

but beneath balmy banks steeped in shining star light,

   crabs come crawling from deep hidey-holes.

Scuttling over the shimmering sandgrains ashore,

   clapping claws to the rhythm of time,

swaying shells, tapping toes with a one two three four,

   they spin shapes while presenting this rhyme:

‘In our homes, in our hearts, oh, how happy are we!,

   so we celebrate this in our song,

for our river from source until estuary

   we dance gladly in crusty-coat throng.’

Thus the party parades through to roseswept sunrise,

   then retreats to the depths of the earth,

as the starry sounds cede to the waterbirds’ cries,

   yet revive nights with musical mirth.

* * *

Just another waltzer; I have enjoyed my afternoon off work!

 <(:-)

Dilwyn

Tap ~ tap ~ tap-tap-tap ~

sticks like feathers, softly flap ~

tap ~ tap ~ tap-tap-tap ~

in the dance from Dil~wyn~

THWACK ~ THWACK ~ THWACK-THWACK-THWACK~

sticks like weapons, loudly crack ~

THWACK ~ THWACK ~ THWACK-THWACK-THWACK~

in the dance from Dil~wyn~

Crabs skip to left and crabs skip to right ~

scuttling the Wye with dance delight ~

crabs skip to left and crabs skip to right ~

in the dance from Dil~wyn~

Repeat Tap and THWACK verses

Stars spin to left and stars spin to right ~

circling the Wye with dance delight ~

stars spin to left and stars spin to right ~

in the dance from Dil~wyn~

Repeat Tap and THWACK verses

Repeat Stars verse

Repeat Tap and THWACK verses

Repeat Crabs verse

Repeat Tap and THWACK verses

Cheer (‘huzzah!’ etc.)

* * *

The P-i-R apologises for her time as ‘P-i-A’ (Poet in Absence) over the summer. Many are the demands of unrelenting masters Work and Ill-Health, resulting in the silence of Creativity, alas. Yet here is one afternoon between projects, between treatments – so to return to Sudeley, if for a brief while.

As Brother Adrian and I neared the Terrace on our first outing, we were met by the joyful sounds of ‘Dilwyn’, recognised from previous performances. Here’s Happenstance’s 2011 Cotswold Beer Festival performance on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rG_LmJG7Os

The Dilwyn tune is one of my favourites to date, and its structure and rhythms inspire this simple poem. I perform using iambic tetrameter, but not as strictly as in previous pieces (for example, ‘Isbourne’), sustaining (~) and splitting beats to capture the overall form. Dear Mrs T. was able to enlighten me concerning the choreography, the stars and crabs, and these shapes return in my next piece.

<(:-)

Chimney-sweepers' Dancing Day

Up those chimneys all the year,

save one day in spring,
then, with Jack, we make our cheer,
through the streets we sing.

Stick it to the master sweep,
on the first of May;
come tomorrow, wounds will weep,
but today we play.

One day off from climbing flues,
black from head to feet,
now we’re reds and greens and blues,
and the air smells sweet.

Stick it to the master sweep,
on the first of May;
come tomorrow, wounds will weep,
but today we play.

Not this day for scraping cuts,
knees and elbows raw,
smoke fumes blazing in our guts,
brimstone, brine and straw.

Stick it to the master sweep,
on the first of May;
come tomorrow, wounds will weep,
but today we play.

Neither’s this a day to die,
stuck in closing walls,
nor to hear a scream and cry
as a poor lad falls.

Stick it to the master sweep,
on the first of May;
come tomorrow, wounds will weep,
but today we play.

How we wish we could be free,
but we have to earn,
put to work by family,
climb and brush and burn.

Stick it to the master sweep,
on the first of May;
come tomorrow, wounds will weep,
but today we play.

* * *
On Bank Holiday Monday 5 May, Happenstance performed at Sudeley Castle, as part of the programme for ‘A Victorian May Day’.

This poem is inspired by the dance created especially for the occasion, recalling a custom in London for the chimney-sweeps of the town to start up the May Day revelries, accompanied by Jack-in-the-Green. There’s a very interesting account of a Cheltenham celebration at http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Folk-Lore/Volume_4/May-Day_in_Cheltenham (I use the second line of Mr. Ames’s ‘ditty’ for my title).

According to research (mostly Mayhew via Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimney_sweep), May Day was the sweeps’ only holiday. Despite attempts at regulation throughout the Victorian era, working conditions remained horrendous for many young boys. I include these experiences in my poem, to draw a contrast with the exuberance of their one day off to dance.

Each verse and the chorus follows the rhyme scheme ABAB…, and the rhythm is – ~ – ~ – ~ – / – ~ – ~ – etc. This is the same rhythm as ‘Song of the Stones’, but to my ear it’s a lot ‘skippier’.


<(:-)

To Sudeley

Grey roadsign points, grand holm oak gestures, nodding stately crown,

reclining high in bristling lordship over terraced town,

commanding upright standing from lime consort at his feet,

trim pollard dwarfs to farmyard giants lining vineclad street.

Warm brick and honeysuckle trellis swirl in citrus breeze,

Allotment Alf snores in his deckchair near unfurled sweet peas,

three children launch boat twigs off crumbling bridge to chanting stream,

as thirsty mare and foals lap keenly, chestnut coats agleam.

Fields sprawl beyond the gatehouse, far hills circle castle grounds,

in dappled shade ewes settle while their joyful offspring bounds,

swans sail through silver ripples to alight on bulrush isle,

nudge downy cygnets waddling ways in double, triple file.

Triumphal archway waves our passage through its ample flanks,

two golden beeches linking limbs on daisy-speckled banks,

then afternoon of fort adventures, fresh ice cream supply,

and gliding past the mulberry tree, a joyful peacock’s cry.

* * *

This poem introduces my Sudeley series, which is inspired by watching Happenstance perform at ‘A Victorian May Day’ and ‘Happenstance Day of Dance’, on 5 and 26 May respectively.

I lived in Winchcombe for a number of years and one of my favourite walks was ‘the Sudeley Stroll’, from Abbey Terrace, down Vineyard Street, and along the scenic drive. One summer I worked as a waitress in the restaurant and I walked this route about five times per week. The poem is a mixture of memories from the late 1980s to the present, with a peacock at the end to recall the handsome fellow who attended the Day of Dance. He may turn up again later ;>)

Like ‘The Winchcombe Morris side of yore’, ‘To Sudeley’ is a fourteener: ~ — ~ — ~ — ~ — ~ — ~ — ~ — (‘mulberry’ here has two syllables, for a jaunty air). I enjoyed revisiting the castle grounds and I owe thanks to Mrs T. for her caution that positioning sheep in ‘alder shade’ might result in their settling too close to the river and possibly falling in altogether – hence ‘dappled’ in my final draft.

<(:-) 

Spring Song

’Twas coal black, the sky, over valley and hill,

trees, grasses, shrubs shaking in northerly chill,

birds glad to keep shelter in feathery beds,

and leaf buds contented to hide their green heads.

Then sudden, the wind died, all’s quiet as a tomb,

’til bells jingled merrily out through the gloom,

and twilight illumined the source of this sound,

the Happenstance Border folk, dancing a round.

High summit, their staging, close by to the clouds,

which draped Gloucester county in purple pink shrouds,

and while the folk flurried, away swept the dawn,

as slowly the sun rose to welcome the morn.

And then, the whole shireland lay gleaming in gold,

from rivers to fields to the top of the wold,

the fish in the Isbourne, the pigs in their sty,

the flecked running rabbits, the larks pealing high.

Jack saw and smiled widely within his grand bower,

and all of his hawthorns burst into full flower,

some white, others crimson, delightful display,

to celebrate spring on the first day of May.

* * *

Very early on Thursday 1 May, Happenstance welcomed in the May on the top of Cleeve Hill.

Alas, the P-i-R was unable to attend, once again for reasons of ill-health. However, physical absence need not prevent a poem, as Mrs T. was able to describe the morning. Unfortunately, it had rained. Yet mere inclemency need not heed the poet’s progress either, as the rain of the natural world yields to the reign of imagination. (P-i-R adjusts an imaginary crown.)

Thus this song, another ‘waltzer’. Whereas in ‘Rocket Dance’ the first beat to be stressed is the third of each line, here it is the second. The form that resembles this sequence most closely is the dactyl – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dactyl_(poetry) – though here we have an unstressed first beat and a silent beat at the end of each line, to make four beats in total: ~ — ~ ~ — ~ ~ — ~ ~ — (~)

I researched May Day online, particularly for reading on Jack in the Green (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_in_the_Green). I’m interested in folklore, if that’s the correct expression! And Spring is such an exuberant season, as nature bursts into bloom.

<(:-)

Upton Sticks

Full uniformed, six stand and scowl,

   contesting threats with grimmer growl,

wild weaponry awaiting shout

   to thrust both sides to raucous rout;

the signal sounds and all advance

   on fearless feet in potent prance,

encircling enemies awhile,

   with fiery eyes and scornful smile;

and then – thwack-thwack! – the stalwart six

   wage Cotswold war of striking sticks,

weave right left, windmill all around

   the entertaining battle ground;

ragged reports in echoes tell

   of flooded fields where fighters fell,

accompanied by rising wails

   as steam train passes ghostly trails;

yet this is not a dance to death,

   to end exhaling broken breath,

instead all fight off gleefully

   in time of camaraderie.

* * *

This poem was inspired by watching Happenstance perform their last set at Wartime in the Cotswolds. This was at Toddington Station, during the late afternoon of Sunday 27 April. Alas, P-i-R was a little late to the event due to ill-health, a common scenario.

The piece is performed in iambic tetrameter and it has five verses. I use semi-colons to divide the verses, rather than a full stop and a blank line, to recall the relentless rhythm of the train as it travels through the Cotswolds. The rhyme scheme overall is AABBCCDDEEFFGGHHIIJJ.

The dance ‘Upton Sticks’ seemed a good fit with the theme of war, as some of its elements are pretty fierce! I include the train itself for hints of ghostliness, the steam and the whistle, and the flooded fields as a nod to Flanders, or any fighting grounds.

I muse often on war, not only WWI and WWII, but all conflicts to the present day. However, Wartime in the Cotswolds aimed to present ‘a lighter look at wartime life’ (http://www.gwsr.com/news/latest-news/a-75-year-journey-back-in-time-on-the-gwr.aspx), so my poem ends in the same spirit.

Requiescat in pace,

P-i-R

A Garland for Happenstance

How still, past customs lie in crumbling tombs

   where memory comes seldom to adorn

the greying graves with spring’s vivacious blooms

   whose scents and colours charm fresh calls to mourn;

for swathes of haze screen signs to culture mounds,

   each pathway spinning thickets to dissuade

the traveller from remembering the grounds

   of former fame, their mappings thus mislaid;

yet persevere, to track the treasure trails

   to yester realm, pass under old oak limbs

and raise tradition high in shining sails

   of greenest garlands, as forgetting dims.

Such monuments so tended may endure

and ancient arts revive for evermore.

* * *

I wrote this poem to present to Cressida at the GWSR event Wartime in the Cotswolds. This event ‘mark[ed] the official inauguration’ of the P-i-R (http://www.gwsr.com/news/latest-news/happenstance-border-morris-at-war-in-the-cotswolds.aspx), so it seemed courteous that the P-i-R mark this too. And many thanks to Brian for reading; it was a real treat to hear the ‘Garland’ in such pleasant and resonant tones <(:-)

It’s a sonnet! Huzzah! The English sonnet is my favourite poetic form, familiar from studying Shakespeare during the A-level years. It’s structured as three quatrains (a quatrain is a verse of four lines) and a final couplet, with the rhyme scheme ABABCDCDEFEFGG. The third quatrain tends to introduce a turn (known in the original Italian sonnet as the ‘volta’) towards resolution in the last two lines.

Inspiration for the ‘Garland’ came from the Squire’s thoughts on ‘intangible heritage’, see via GWSR link. I googled and arrived at UNESCO (http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?lg=en&pg=00002). As I read, images came to mind of a burial ground for cultures, sparking the pictures I paint in the piece. However, each cultural form has potential for resurrection, for as long as it endures in living memory. I was musing also on Ravel’s Le tombeau de Couperin, in which the former composer pays homage to the Baroque French keyboard suite while remembering friends killed during the First World War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_tombeau_de_Couperin).

I find I have many musings on intangible heritage, but this may suffice for now. The rhythm I hear is iambic pentameter, sustained throughout. There’s scope to mix things up with an extra-syllable feminine rhyme or trochaic foot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonnet), but regularity comes naturally to the ears of the P-i-R, to the extent that irregularity makes me feel as though my head is falling off! That is not an enjoyable experience.

<(:-)