A red kite, but no osprey (dedicated to Catrin Finch and Seckou Keita…and the Dyfi Osprey Project)
Posted: August 2, 2018 Filed under: Photo, Poem | Tags: Catrin Finch, Dinas Osprey Project, flowers, Harp, Kora, music, Pembrokeshire, Photography, Poetry, Seckou Keita, Senegal, Wales 2 Comments
(PHOTOS by Marc Mordey – the Penrallt Eagle, created by the blacksmiths
at Dinas, Pembrokeshire)
(The music, like the bird itself
Soars
Above the Dyfi Estuary,
and over the mangroves
fumbling their way to the
Isle de Palétuviere
as the pirogues drift down glassy water
and a pelican dominates the jetty)
In Pembrokeshire,
a red kite
eddying the cloudless sky
imperious above our crop dusted fields
might spy
siskin, finch, wood pigeon
a thrush, jack hammering a snail
between two stone dogs
keeping their green mossed vigil
A young jackdaw
striking a cormorant pose
bewitched by the chimney
beating time on the ridge tiles
(It’s hot, this year)
There are swallows skimming
and Amazons at sail in the bay
muted blue below
(and the harp still swoons
and the kora
flying fingered fishing line
rocks a gentle rhythm
whilst I am at sea
in a pyjama striped hammock)
Blue tits, dipping for water
in the stone bird bath
that celebrates a golden grand-parented wedding
of 50 years ago
There are lilies blooming
amidst the dying embers of foxglove
and jasmine perfume teasing
romping in a green gaged balloon of bush
St John’s Wort in full throttle
And pink flushed, sunset resplendent
oliander, a whisper of Greece
and the road to Milapotamos
that we took
so long ago
(and the opsrey, Dinas, fledges
takes fleeting, freewheeling flight
and feels Wales on its wings
maybe anticipates
instinct, deep chested and hidden
Senegal sunshine
fat flowing river
sea hawk’s delight)
The honeysuckle is draped
and honeyed
whilst the weather vane is stilled
the umbrella stifled with gaffer tape mends
no breeze
no sirocco
blowing the wind southerly
from Africa
to lighten the atmosphere.
(but, no fear
for the music still plays,
swaying, stirring, evoking
the sea,
Carningli
Dinas Head
Morfa Head
and the Land of Song beyond
still here
still here)
Summer poem – of calves, community and being an outsider, an incomer….
Posted: July 12, 2014 Filed under: Poem | Tags: calves, community, cows, Dinas Head, farmers, flowers, immigration, jetstreams, Pembrokeshire, Summer poem, summertime 2 Comments“All things must pass. Mankind is as grass.”
Summer poem
Two calves adventured, maybe misdirected
or spooked? Perhaps, a dog?
dived into the grassy basket of Matilda’s field,
bovine misadventure,
not equine, resurrected.
In the morning,
a delicious day, already sun baked by nine
June, “in like a lion”,
jet steams, cats cradled patterns
streaked the blue backed, split of sunshine,
and I found one calf
nestled into a bower of bracken
nettled and serenaded by the marshmallow pink and white
of baby breathed hawthorn,
bordered by buttercups.
There it stayed, the whole lazy summer’s day,
nervous, ill at ease
unwilling to gambol or feed
unwilling to make hay.
Three farmers came
cattle calling
as the evening slipped away.
Stealthy summer sunset.
Dinas Head diminished,
shadowed
lost horizons
a fishing boat scarred by light
a duskling starshine
in the breathless bay.
“They’ve only been out a day or two,
everything a new sensation,
even the sunlight is new.
Don’t know grass
Nor bonded as a group.
They simply don’t understand
what it is
they’re meant to do.”
We herded the two runaways out of the gate
leading them lane wards
as opposed to astray
through the greened canopy
outfoxed by foxgloves
the elders floated subdued, ethereal amongst the elderflower
motes, particles, as we passed
behind Bryneithen
and into the railway sided field.
The man I walked alongside of
spoke wistfully
of those, “our friends” likewise lost,
of the ties of this small community
the roped weight of history.
And a hint, a nod perhaps,
towards the incoming stream
a Westwards eddy,
and suggested, maybe implied
the consequential claim:
fragmentation, discord, disunity.
In T shirt, shorts and wellies
no farmer, I,
we talked on, joked a little,
a slither of gossip, happenstance,
and yet, a sense, a fractioned hint
of difference
akin somehow, to distance.
Discontent with
the immigrant?
The calves were happy though.
For now,
“Let them eat cake”.
And then
Dusk dropped the lid
and we parted.
“Perhaps you’ll write a poem”
they ribbed.
And so,
I did.
Marc Mordey 12 7 14
