Caped crusader

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It’s everything
a cycling garment shouldn’t be –
if you take the conventional view
that these things should be
smooth, slinky, aero
free of all extraneous materials and weight
cut close to the body
to slice and dice the breeze.

But sheltered here
by its broad, voluptuous folds
I am impervious to wind, rain and ridicule:
not slowly boiling in a plastic bag
but free to feel the air swirl around me –
half nomad, half one-ring travelling circus
and in my defiance of the expected
just a little bit heroic.

This is about cycling in my waterproof rain poncho (in cheerful Rowanberry Red). I’ve had it for some time but never used it until this week. Having been a road cyclist for 30 years it should be anathema in almost every respect; but I absolutely love it and wish I’d tried it sooner. It’s also emblematic of a wider shift in myself and my approach to life in general I’m currently undergoing. Hence writing this little celebratory poem about it.

I got caught in a downpour this morning and it worked amazingly well. The best part is that it doesn’t trap heat like Gore-Tex and its ilk. Although those technical fabrics allow you to ride at full speed, they’re not nearly as breathable as they’d like us to think they are so you get really hot in them – and usually end up as wet from the inside as you would have got without wearing a jacket at all. With its billowy shape – it’s a poor sail but an excellent parachute – the poncho militates against fast riding: you just have to roll along, which is a much more mindful approach to riding in the rain. I feel like I’ve discovered a secret superpower – which, of course, is exactly what a cape should bestow on its wearer.

Independence movement

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We wear our differentness lightly –
not provocative, ostentatious
or out to shock –
ours is a quiet, teatime rebellion;
a steely determination
not to follow in the wheels
meekly drafting form or fashion;
but to find our own, meandering path
untroubled by the world’s desire
always to go further, faster
and add a little grace and beauty
to all we find around us.

This is peak season for riding my Guv’nor GT – a respectful contemporary revival of the bikes British firm Pashley made when it was founded back in the 1920s. The eight-speed hub gear is a nice concession to my dodgy knees, the Reynolds 531 frame and big-volume tyres combine to give a smooth, comfortable ride, and the whole experience is wonderful, despite (or perhaps because of) its being a complete anachronism. And as well as putting a smile on my face, the Guv makes other people smile too, which only adds to the pleasure.

Odonata

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I’ve never seen you, but you’ve always been here.
Two hundred million years have left no mark
On your enamelled armour:
You watched the dinosaurs come and go –
Untouched by fire, riding high above the oceans’ surge,
Skimming through the dust and cold
Hunting down the weakest link
In the all-collapsing chain.
Wings that beat the Carboniferous air
Now thrum across a summer garden
As you add your tale of weeks
To seventy-three billion days:
A infinitesimal twinkle in the universe’s eye.
Till alien, bejewelled, you launch and spin away
Over the fence and gone again.
A momentary glimpse into the vast abyss of time.

Saw my first Brown Hawker dragonfly (Aeshna grandis) in the garden this morning when one paid us a brief but scintillating visit. It’s a magnificent creature, and although its wingspan is only about four inches, it seemed as big as a Sopwith Camel in our modest urban domain. I always feel there’s something rather alien about dragonflies: they look as though they’ve been meticulously constructed from exotic metals and exquisitely engineered parts, like the Martians’ machines in The War of the Worlds. It’s also humbling to remember that while, as a family, they’re older then the dinosaurs – modern dragonflies have been with us for around 200 million years – each individual takes to the air for just a few weeks, so I felt doubly lucky to see it.

Guilt trip

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I tell myself I want to write –
Devote myself to words and rhyme
And it’s not lack of appetite
Preventing me, but want of time.
So here I am with empty days
That I can spend just as I like
But do I mend my idle ways?
Of course not. I just ride my bike.

Because I see my destiny
Lies on the road and on the page:
They both bring out the best in me
Each acting as a vital gauge
Of health in body and in mind
And I have slowly learned to tell
What medicine I need to find
And where, and which will serve me well.

Been on holiday in Brittany and, as usual, completely failed in my pre-departure resolve to ‘get some writing done’ while I was away. Did manage to jot down a few bits and bobs, including this; but also clocked up around 500 km on the bike, which I came to realise was what I actually needed more. The lesson I’ve taken from this is to be less hard on myself, listen to my mind and body and not beat myself up if I don’t feel like writing for a few days. I just have to remind myself that the desire to write is always there somewhere and that I’ll always come back to it: it’s not just something I do, but part of who I am. N.

Forward

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And so it comes to this. A man sits all alone
to contemplate his life. He wonders what went wrong.
What misstep did he make; what path was he once shown
but somehow never took? The years have been so long
and yet not long enough: so much remains undone;
so many peaks to climb, so many roads to ride.
And as he stares towards the setting of the sun
he wonders what is left. What will he be denied
by life’s swift onward rush? He asks: is it too late
to chart a different course, steer by another star?
While in his heart he knows this is his chosen state:
and there’s no turning round; the way back is too far.
So he could stop and stand, let life go drifting by
while trying to figure out exactly what to do.
But something stirs within: he knows that he must try
and from this point he sees the only way is through.

More alexandrines from the garden. They’re such fun to write. N.

Ghost

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A swift shape briefly glimpsed as I passed by the hedge.
I stopped to look again, hopes high, senses alert –
The world at once reduced to here and now, no more.
And then my breathing stopped. I stood there, open-mouthed
I watched you rise and wheel as though some sudden spell
Were spoken to the air to conjure you for me.

Ten seconds or an hour? Time lost all meaning then
All other thought consumed by your soft, soundless flight.
To look into your eyes, to see your white wings flex;
A parting of the veil, a sacred reaching-out
Before you disappeared beyond the sheltering trees
To leave me there alone bereft of words and breath.

But all I wanted then was to apologise:
To beg you to forgive the wickedness we’ve wrought
In all we took from you; your home and hunting-grounds.
The little you have left fragmented and disturbed
And moments such as mine so rare and bitter sweet:
Reward and yet rebuke: joy salted with despair.

More alexandrines, this time inspired by my close encounter with a barn owl (Tyto alba) yesterday. I had no words at the time, but managed to string these together later: still wholly inadequate for what was a truly magical moment. (I borrowed ‘salted’ from Edward Thomas’s poem The Owl – a far superior evocation of this astonishing creature.) N.

Guilty pleasures

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At last the sleeping fields wake to the touch of spring.
And every walk and ride now promises to bring
The sweet scent of crushed grass, the tang of new-turned earth,
Bright shining leys, new lambs, the long-quiet land’s rebirth.
The primrose on the bank, the blackbird on the tree;
I sense the great wheel’s turn in all I hear and see.

And yet there is a guilt. All that I find so fair
Puts poison in the ground, pollutants in the air.
And all the land is owned by the same one percent
Who through their greed and lies caused Albion’s descent
And all these birds and blooms a mockery and shade
Of all that once was ours, all that we have unmade.

Decided to try some alexandrines – lines of 12 iambic feet, with a caesura after the third one; the form traditionally used in French heroic verse, it says here. Nothing very heroic about this piece, I’m afraid: it’s wonderful that spring has finally arrived, but my recent reading and personal observations have made me realise that all is very far from well in this country of ours. Beautiful and seemingly bountiful as it is, this is the most nature-depleted landscape in the whole of Europe, and the declines in numerous species of birds, plants, insects and animals are heart-stopping. My guilt arises from the fact that I’ve always enjoyed watching agricultural machinery at work; and my increasing anger from knowing that the self-styled ‘stewards and custodians of the countryside’ are often anything but. Rightly or wrongly, I am a nature poet by instinct and probably always will be. But in this day and age, I feel I have to confront the realities of environmental degradation, the climate emergency and the injustices of Britain’s land ownership regime too: to do otherwise seems naive, self-indulgent and irresponsible. It still feels uncomfortable; but then maybe that’s the point.

Adventures in Downland

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No great mountains
unseen vistas
unmapped country
paths untrodden;
All within sight of farm and village,
all within sound of the main coast road;
fifty miles from the seething city,
twenty or less from my own front door.

But out, alone, beyond my oft-beaten bounds;
over a hill I have not climbed in years
on roads that never left their dust
on these two wheels before
into a wind from high cold lands
beneath the red kite’s all-seeing eye:
I’d call that
a real adventure.

Enjoyed a 40-mile round trip to Litlington in the heart of the South Downs with the MGB (Matcha Green Brompton) yesterday. I hadn’t been out that way for a long time, and never on the Brommie, so it felt like a proper adventure – the more so since I always think a mile on a Brompton is worth two on a big-wheeled bike. A beautiful March Sunday, with wild flowers and lambs everywhere, but a stiff, freezing-cold NNE wind reminding me it’s still only early spring. The white figure just visible on the hillside in the background is the Long Man of Wilmington, a giant figure 235 feet tall carved into the chalk. Sadly, he’s not especially ancient – he’s thought to date from the 16th or 17th Century – but he’s a local icon, particularly since he now gives his name to some really excellent ale brewed nearby.

Gouverner, c’est choisir

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The world is full of darkness. Hate and fear
Feed off each other, stoked by wicked men
So drunk on power that all we once held dear
And thought was safe is threatened once again.
So easy to be overrun and feel
There is no hope, no purpose any more
When we are made to question what is real
And certainty and truth are shown the door.
But I can make my choice. I could engage
And join the war in hope of some release
From all this angst; or I can turn the page.
And leave them to it while I work for peace.
Against such forces, I can only lose.
In thought and life, to govern is to choose.

The famous observation ‘Gouverner c’est choisir’ (To govern is to choose) was made in 1953 by Pierre Mendès France, then prime minister of France. I’ve come to realise that while I can’t change the situation I find myself in, I can govern my own thoughts and reactions to it; but that means making choices, which in turn means remaining vigilant and not allowing myself to be swept along by the tide. It’s hard and I keep forgetting that I do have a choice over where to direct my frankly limited reserves of energy, hope and resilience. But choose I must, or risk being utterly overwhelmed by it all. Bon courage, tout le monde.

Comet(h) the hour…

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I’m homeless and friendless. I travel alone:
I’ve no warmth within me; heart cold as a stone.
Beyond time and memory, far out of sight –
a solitary pilgrim, lost in the night.

Long ages you’ve tracked me, stayed on my tail:
a chalk-smudge on heaven, distant and pale.
And if I should pass, take the time to discern
my presence: you won’t live to see my return.

I am portent of pestilence, earthquake and war:
appeared in the sky the day Godwinson swore
the kingdom was his; and on Senlac his lie
was punished the old way. An eye for an eye.

In my own right I’ve swept mighty races aside:
it is said by my hand that the dinosaurs died.
The mark of the maker, a print left behind;
a clue to the mystery? You’re reading my mind.

For I am the author of all: I gave birth
to the life that went on to inherit the earth.
Through my contribution to your chemistry
you are stardust, eternal. Come; wander with me.

I’ve been intrigued by the Anglo-Saxon riddles ever since I read the famous exchange of ‘Riddles in the Dark’ between Bilbo and Gollum in The Hobbit as a youngster. I’ve enjoyed writing them myself over the years, and their oblique, tricksy form seemed apt for a piece to mark the passage of Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) over Sussex a couple of nights ago: our second amazing celestial phenomenon in as many weeks after the Aurora Borealis earlier this month.

It’s a humbling thought that this is one of just a handful of occasions when Comet A3 has been visible from Earth in the entirety of human history; and even more sobering that, given our current trajectory as a species, Homo sapiens may not be around to see it when it return in 80,000 years’ time.

Once again, thanks and blessings to my daughter for the amazing photo – and to Big Bobble Hats for my big UCI bobble hat; the closest I shall ever come to wearing the rainbow bands of world champion!