Arriving in the yard
I switch off the engine
and gaze at the view,
evening sun on the rolling hills
yellow fields, dark woods.
In the sudden silence
a buzzard mews,
distantly guiding sheep
dogs bark.

Entering the gate
I come home to my hermitage,
welcoming trees brood
and the old door creaks on rusty hinges
falling plaster needs sweeping from the floor,
softly on cold flags moisture gleams.

Lighting the fire
I watch slow smoke rising,
hang in the windless cwm.
The smells of the hills
roll in through opened windows,
thankfully I breath out city air,
inside my room
no sound.


The hills lie still, only sheep disturb
this summer evening's equanimity,
over the farmstead yard
the dark soul'd sycamore broods
bunched branches heavily
together hang.

Wide valley, patchwork fields
roof the bedrock of this land,
few travellers, for tourists hug the towns
and roads that cut like knives,
here shady lanes meander yet,
one travels vaguely,
things do not get
so easily done.

Fading light brings deeper silence,
the grey stone soul turns inward to the cwm,
this sycamore now holds its breath
continuously - my eyes roam
yard to landscape far to near,
behind my chair
the small and unlit house
waits like an old friend.


Freshly cool the silent room inhales
the fair scent of summer night
candles on the table flutter
an incense mingling breeze.

Retreated from our seared souls' silences,
those zombie spaces where in the cold snake
kills the warm, composed heart opens
to the pains that move yet are not changed.

If I could give you now this other stillness
wherein the night owl cries beyond the barn
two minds' silences would be as one
grateful emptiness of a midnight calm.

And yet heart's silences like secrets
are for the single one alone -
in your universe and far away you move
here candles flutter in hay scented air