When is the right time?
Please let it be now
Hello Wildlings,
It is truly Spring, the chiff-chaff has arrived and the sun is shining over all the fallen trees that storm Dave brought down. Time is passing and the earth is revolving as it always does, always has and always will.
I know I was late with the last newsletter, so this one arrives only a week, rather than two, after the last and as I do not want to bombard you I am just going to offer this small poem that is based on the image you see above.
Sweden is very well known for it’s Dala horses that come from Dalarna (as does my husband.) At the start of our relationship I organised for a local stained-glass window specialist in Kings Heath to create one in glass as a gift for my now husband.
We hung it in the window of the apartment where we lived and I remember being entranced by how the shadow of it moved around the room throughout the day, as the sun changed position in the sky.
Time and Place
The Dala horse hangs at my window
Tethered in lead
His flanks, cathedral glass
He is still
Until the sun shines
Then his shadow-self, canters around the bedroom
Grazing on the crocheted bedcover
Made by a grandmother’s hands, three generations past.
His path follows the sun
And the duration of his journey
Marks the passing of the year.
When I was young, I knew the passing of the year
By the tug of seasons, as firm as grappling hooks pulling me forward.
I knew, through the ice inside my bedroom window
And the rubber smell of a hot-water bottle in a damp bed.
Through the freshness of wind-dried bed sheets
And the smoke of Guy Fawkes night.
Through chalked hopscotch and British bulldog
And the lace-confettied wings of flying ants on the street.
The year was a skipping song of seasonal food:
Onions, cauliflower, nettles, carrots
Jersey mids, rhubarb, bilberries, beetroot
Strawberries, marrow, parsnips, apples,
Cobnuts, chestnuts, brussel sprouts and cranberries.
We lived in the seasons and the seasons lived in us.
Standing on the ‘High Coast’ of Sweden
I look out from a stone covered beach
286 metres above sea level.
It has slowly risen upwards
An aria from the ice age
And continues to rise,
Not yet at the crescendo
Its journey up, up and ever up.
In the blue misted distance I see the mountains
Stone silent sentinels
Snow barnacled and straining towards something unknown.
I descend.
Stunted trees appear
And below my feet
A whorled, wooden eye
Blinks itself above the rooted soil.
Grass tussocked spines
Hummocked buffalos
Push against the rough shrub-land.
The land is filled with earthed beasts
Waiting, waiting
Like Arthur and his knights
For the time when their land needs them most.
I wonder where the bell is to waken them.
As a child, I remember finding wilderness
In between the cracks of concrete.
Of pushing privet twigs
Into sandy ant holes.
Of fearing the red mites
That sucked your blood.
Of lying in the grass of the local park
Mesmerised by the crickets
That I would place in matchboxes
Just to hear their music a little longer.
I rarely hear it now.
I could name the song of the blackbird, robin, wren and thrush.
Swift, starling and the sparrow’s chatter.
I knew the messages that their songs carried.
Their flights earthed me, helped me belong.
At Tanum I see the past etched in stone.
I see images of boats and people
Oxen and birds
I see the images of cranes
4,000 years old,
Made by a bronze tool’s, chip, chip, chip.
I stand and witness the cranes arriving.
A sign of spring
I hear all the cameras click, click, click.
I reach my hand backwards, into my past
And sense that same hand on my chest
Pulling me forward
I reach my hand forward, into my future
And sense that same hand on my spine
Pulling me backward
The Dala horse hangs at my window
Tethered in lead
His flanks, cathedral glass
He is still
Until the sun shines
I wonder, does the sun cause him to move
Or is he the one who pulls the sun?
I hope you enjoy the poem. Time and the working of it has always fascinated me and I hope this makes it fascinate you too. I am going to finish with a small request my wonderful subscribers - I have over 1100 now, which is astonishing to me and 10 of you are paying to help me do this work of writing and also helping me believe that I can and that too astonishes me!
Here is the thing - I would love it if any of you who can afford to take out a paid subscription would do so - the immigration laws have changed in Sweden and I am not earning enough to qualify to stay here ….. my ‘right-to-remain’ needs to be renewed in December and though I have applied for Irish Citizenship - (which means I will be an EU citizen and be able to stay) - it can take up to 12 month to process and then 2 - 3 months to get the passport. All this is a way of asking you to help me increase my revenue if you can. It would mean so much and take away such an anxiety that presently has taken up residence in my head.
Stay wild and curious and please feel free to email me if you want to come to the Monthly Mythcelium Gathering on Sunday 19th April.
With much love and hope
kx