Campbell Park Hill

Click this text to hear Alex read this poem

Come if you will, come with me
and let us call out to nature
for our new beginning.
Let us walk carefully so we do
not step on the ants and crawling things
that live amongst the gravel until
we are at the crest of the big high hill
in the park.

Let us stretch our arms wide at the
edge of the drop and
turn our palms up towards the
blue sky so they catch the weight
of the sunshine and head back, eyes shut,
allow the beams to drip between our fingers.

Let the ancient soul trapped
within us scramble to the surface
and escape through our mouths
as we call out an old wordless song
to the valley and the little rivers below.

We shall feel the warm wind gently
tug at our hair and flick our collars
about us and mingle with our calling
voices so they are borne like kites
made of sound to the sheep in the far
fields and the dog-walking people who
lumber their sticks in arcs to their
lolloping furry companions.

In that moment we must close our eyes
tighter so we can let the glory of this
simple pleasure flush out the modernity
of us until we are once again
cavemen at Piltdown, hunters in the
rainforest and dust-covered people
who dig honey from bee’s nests with
a pointed stick.

Lean forward and close your eyes.
Press your cheek against the bark of this tree.
This tree is older than America.
This tree saw wars which were not photographed
and were described in books we can no longer read.
This tree was here before your grandfather
and will see your grandchildren fade from the
pages of unwritten history books.
This tree stood amongst an infant electricity,
listened to the telephone grow up and
saw democracy stolen by the greedy naughties.
This tree has roots in a soil that
was soaked by Pepy’s Autumn rain
and baked by Keat’s summer sun.
…and you want to cut it down?

They took my sky away...

Click this text to hear Alex read this poem

I came home and they’d taken my sky away.
I used to look out with that distant kind of smile
and step away from the ups and downs of the day
by glazing over and floating into that deep blue distance.

I used to stand and wonder if the clouds I saw
had been to other countries. I wondered if
they rained on Africans who were happy to feel
them do their thing and on Parisians who
would grumble with a Gallic shrug and hasten
their pace towards Montmartre.

I used to wonder if the sand in the raindrops
was really from the Sahara or if it was
some bits of a riverbank from just down the road.

I used to imagine what it would be like to
soar up like a bird amongst those clouds;
wondered if they would be soft or
if they’d be wet and bumpy or cold and lumpy.

I’d look around and see the March daffodils
make patterns like a landing strip for
some airborne God and the hidden Spring
primroses as they nestled amongst the
sticky-bud bushes.

I’d drift on in my head amongst those clouds
and look down on my home and the city I love
in such a complicated way. I could see the
silly fights people had over nothing and the
foxes in the woods.

But when I came home today I found they took my
sky away with the wrong kind of crane, cement
mixers and a sheer climb of ugly bricks.
Profit it seems, is more than a match for my daydreams.