Ecological

A Virtual Tour of a Mixed Habitat including Limestone Pavement and Flower Grassland.

Welcome to you all on this sunny day.

This habitat packs a huge emotional punch. We have around 100 acres of countryside: I hope we’ll feel physically caught up in the drama during our tour. Everything appears fresh and vibrant as if on the first day of creation. Listen. Did you hear the song thrush? It sings in triplets. Look: here below you can see the silvery track of a snail. Smell: that’s honeysuckle of course. We can truly appreciate the web of life here today.

The blue tit chicks are only a day old. They’ll need a hundred thousand caterpillars each day; the caterpillars need the bedstraw and clover to munch and the bedstraw and clover need the sun and nutrients in the soil. All is connected, including us. Where would we be without the bee? Oh! Here’s a sparrow-hawk: that’s goodbye to one of the blue tit parents. Isn’t it a privilege to see birth and death in front of our very eyes.

Lets zoom in for a close up of that piece of turf (yes, it’s rather like Durer’s drawing isn’t it!). Some of you children should be able to see the tiny ants scurrying up and down stalks of grass. Hear that? It’s not a bee; it’s a master of disguise called a Bee Fly, or Bombylius Major strictly speaking. That’s a name to conjure with and a headline to end all headlines isn’t it.

Now if we fast forward a good few decades, what do we notice? No, I don’t want you to be alarmed; I’m not like Greta! Just observe. Note the temperature. Yes, just a three degree increase. Where are the birds? Mostly gone. No caterpillars. But there are some daisies and dandelions growing in the hardened chalk soil, so not all is lost. Listen. No songs or calls. It’s just distant traffic.

Let’s do a casualty count: the warmer wetter winters have killed off the caterpillars of the Garden Tiger moth. So, we can declare that species extinct. The September Thorn is a thorn in the flesh and the Figure of Eight has us tied up in knots. The Narrow-leaved Everlasting Pea, so profuse here before, is no where to be seen. The Autumnal Moth has fallen victim too but let’s hope it’s clinging on out there in someone’s organic garden. That’s not counting the birds of course.

That’s the end of our virtual tour for today. Please bear with us during the next few weeks; we are experiencing problems with air conditioning which may effect future tours. Please check the website for latest developments. Tours may not be as advertised.

To My Father

I’ve been trying to write a long poem in tribute to my father who was a Wordsworth enthusiast. Needless to say, I have found it very difficult and don’t know what to make of my attempt. This is the beginning. The good thing about a blog is you can float ideas to try out. This is not a finished draft; merely a first attempt!

*

Is it for this an un-bridged chasm yawned between us?

I know I turned away from your literary conversations

and when you wrote your annotations, but be sure, that now

I venerate your Everyman hardback. Now you’re no longer

able to converse with Wordsworth or with me I’ll try

and bridge the widening gap. I’ve paid homage today

by gluing the loose spine and placing your book on my altar.

*

You didn’t annotate De Quincey’s quip, that Wordsworth’s legs

were certainly not ornamental so I wonder if you smiled

when you followed De Quincey’s meandering steps. Did you

chuckle when you read that beside a tall clergyman

Wordsworth’s figure appeared “mean” and he walked

like a beetle, even edging his companions off the highway?

Once you attached a grapnel around his eyes and underscored:

there was a light as if radiating from some spiritual world

the light that never was on land or sea.

I’m in concord here and throw a rope to the other side, hoping

I can narrow the distance. I’m following a convoluted path

here and now but recognise your footprints: your battles

en route and with the dimming light. Some footholds

afford some security and I can rest awhile. I travel on

and glimpse a finger-post pointing to a deep ravine;

I hope there’s a permissive path beyond the gorse.

*

I was a toddler trailing clouds of glory when you read

about your hero’s legs. Like his, yours conquered many a peak

and cut a path through scrub and gorse. Years later I came to myself

in a dark wood: I knew I had lost the way. If only I had

talked to you about Dante’s Labyrinthine Way!

Your furrow then was straight and certain, a bulwark against

the distractions of the world. You underlined in pencil;

he was guarded from too early intercourse with the deformities

of crowded life. In the ensuing years your naming of parts

obscured both our paths. You named the poetic faculty

as the highest good. I find your longer sentences difficult

to follow even with a magnifying glass. You turned his Ode

around and wrote horizontally. There is little that’s fugitive

but his spots of time became your asterisks; his radical ideas

your ‘toning down.’

I lay down my words in the shadow of yours;

I underline the verses next to yours and tomorrow I’ll copy out

your longer passages before they fade from view. My hands

touch the edge of both our worlds on this cold day.

A double underlining for the powers of reason and nature

thus reciprocally teacher and taught – you can be my guide

even at this late date. I know that, a voice without imagination

cannot be heard. Is it for this that I am searching for the signs?

Love & Diotima’s Ladder

I did an online course about Plato and one of the assignments was to rewrite part of a dialogue where Socrates is asking Euthyphro what justice and piety are. As usual. Plato makes Socrates’ debating partner look a bit dim so I have redressed the balance. ‘Love’ in Socrates’ philosophy is ‘love of knowledge’ as well as love in relationships.

SOCRATES: As it is, I know well enough that you think you have true knowledge of what’s holy and good and what is not. Tell me, then, most worthy Euthyphro, and don’t conceal what you think it is.

EUTHYPHRO: Well, dear Socrates, as you know there are the four virtues; justice, prudence, courage and wisdom. You yourself have talked endlessly about your Theory of Forms, where the virtues reside as universal perfections. In my understanding they reside with the gods.

SOCRATES: Goodness, Euthyphro, I am amazed you remember my discourse of a year ago! However, you still haven’t told me what holiness or goodness actually is.

EUTHYPHRO: I remember your Allegory of the Cave where you talk about true goodness being like the sun but that we humans live in semi darkness mistaking the shadows for reality.

SOCRATES: Again I am humbled by your memory and understanding. Please continue; tell me how we become the best people we can be.

EUTHYPHRO: Can I remind you of another person who sheds light on this subject as well as yourself Socrates?

SOCRATES: Of course.

EUTHYPHRO: Do you remember the wise lady Diotima?

SOCRATES: Of course. Are you going to tell me about her Ladder?

EUTHYPHRO: Yes, Diotima says that a young man should first of all love a person for their beauty. This is how most of us are attracted to each other isn’t it Socrates?

SOCRATES: Yes, indeed.

EUTHYPHRO: After a while, say a few years, the young man should realise that many other people are just as beautiful. He will ascend a few steps on Diotima’s Ladder.

SOCRATES: So, is the idea that he becomes less obsessed with his first love?

EUTHYPHRO: You could say that but really he must venerate wisdom above physical beauty.

SOCRATES: Yes, but this demands a complete change in how we usually view love.

EUTHYPHRO: Exactly, we must have an experienced guide at this stage on the ladder.

SOCRATES: So, tell me about the next few rungs of the ladder.

EUTHYPHRO: Next he should widen his love and appreciation to include animals, institutions, buildings and anything else in the world which is beautiful. In short he must learn not to take sense-experience as his main source of knowledge.

SOCRATES: Now we are getting to the crux of the matter. Please go on Euthyphro.

EUTHYPHRO: He must develop intellectual contemplation and leave behind likes and dislikes dependent upon sense experience.

SOCRATES: I am astonished once again at your understanding Euthyphro. And next?

EUTHYPHRO: Well, the culmination of his meditations is nothing short of a glimpse of the Eternal, Socrates. What he’ll see doesn’t come and go or cease to be and doesn’t increase or diminish.

SOCRATES: So starting off with worldly love he ascends from the things of this world until he can bear the brightness of the sun in our allegory Euthyphro?

EUTHYPHRO: Exactly.

SOCRATES: You mentioned a guide before. Who is this Guide?

EUTHYPHRO: We all remember you talking of your Daimon Socrates! It is the inner voice of conscience sent by the gods to be our guide in choosing right from wrong.

SOCRATES: Well said Euthyphro. So, the Daimon is the mediator between we humans and the gods. Is that what you mean?

EUTHYPHRO: This is what you yourself have said Socrates and Diotima agrees with you.

SOCRATES: I think we can sum up now. For us to be truly happy we have to live a virtuous life. We have to listen to our Daimon and cultivate contemplation of the Forms. The highest good is unchangeable (like the sun) and if we catch sight of it gold and clothing and good-looking youths will pale into insignificance beside it.

EUTHYPHRO: Well put Socrates. And what about rebirth? Do we come back again and again until we learn these lessons?

SOCRATES: I’m afraid Euthyphro, that question will have to wait for another day.

 

 

 

The Visitors

This piece is based on something that happened to my mother in her old age. This is a stressful time of the year for lots of people especially those who live alone. Our society is dysfuntional in so many ways; the increase in social isolation and the way the elderly are regarded are symptoms of a deep malaise.

 

When you find yourself automatically turning on the television for the six o’clock news, when you become aware once again of the dull throb in the left side of your head, when you stretch your right hand down to rub your aching thigh, when you decide it’s time to shuffle towards the kitchen and see what’s in the fridge, when you scrape off the morning’s coagulated porridge from the saucepan and empty it down the lavatory, when you slowly eat your solitary microwaved meal, when you return to your sofa and continue to watch the television, when you find yourself drifting off to sleep; you come to with a start – then suddenly you feel there is someone standing behind your sofa.

 

The visitors are here again. Although you are not sure if they are the same men as before, you think you recognise the taller one. He has a moustache and black hair. As you get up from the sofa the men turn to face you and edge round the furniture. The smaller of the two, the one with the shaved head, crosses the room to sit in a chair opposite the sofa. You feel agitated and find you cannot focus on the intruders sufficiently. The smaller of the two is speaking and his words sound loudly in your head. You look to see where the tall man is and cannot quite make out a figure in the darkness of the hallway. You decide to speak.

“I’m alright you know. You don’t need to worry; I have two sons who visit me and a nurse comes on Fridays.”

The bald man is speaking again in a low voice now. You can only catch some of the words,

“Trying to. . worry. .keep the door.. . .safety.”

You have the front door key and can’t understand why the man is talking about the door.

You start to feel anxious and snap,

“Get out, get out!”

You see quite clearly the tall man walking past you towards the front door. When you look around for the bald man he is not to be seen. Then you hear a voice but you are not sure who is speaking.

“We’ll make sure you are ok.”

This does not make you feel secure and now that the men have left there is an empty silence.

 

You sit down on the sofa with a loud expulsion of breath and notice your right hand is shaking.

“Why, why?” you say out loud, and again,

“What would Albert think about me talking to strange men?”

You get up with some effort and walk slowly towards the kitchen to put on the kettle. As you fill up the kettle you wonder how the men get inside your flat. You drink the hot tea and wonder if they are from the council, and that you probably forgot that you let them in. You sit down and notice your hand has stopped shaking.

You retire to bed earlier than usual. It is half past nine. You notice you haven’t put the pile of washing in the washer. You tell yourself to do this tomorrow morning and move the pile to the kitchen.

 

It is six o’clock the following evening. You have had your meal of mackerel and mashed potatoes. You are watching the six o’clock news. The body count from Syria doesn’t register and the latest plan for improving the NHS somehow gets mixed up with statistics about prisons. You press the remote control eager to find something less confusing. You find a nature programme about badgers when you hear the doorbell. You get up and see two men in the hall. You wonder if they are from the council. You haven’t seen them before. The tall one has a moustache and black hair. . .

 

 

 

Homeless Again

It is that time of the year again when politicians will talk of the scourge of homelessness but do little to solve the problem. This is something I wrote a couple of years ago when I was in a writing group: I seem to remember I recited it as a semi-rap. A couple of centuries ago William Blake talked of how the church and state needed the poor so we could feel good dishing out ‘charity.’ An audio file of me reading this is on my FB page.

NOTE: If you see someone sleeping rough and you are concerned phone -0300 500 0914 – in the UK. They should send someone to speak to the person and arrange emergency accommodation.

 

Regeneration

Please keep our streets clean

5000 people sleep on ’em;

Lets rally round, lets turn the tide

and restore national pride!

It’s the end of austerity –

so our PM said with due temerity.

So – Please keep our streets clean

5000 people sleep on ’em; lets not be mean.

There’s no room to swing a cat

in a cardboard box but perhaps a rat.

Private development equals – cardboard

encampments along embankments.

Public space isn’t aesthetic– its tragicomic

not economic – there – that’s rhyme,

rhythm, deception, division.

Please keep our streets clean

5000 people sleep on ’em.

The recession and no-choice austerity’s

like an infection – not good for your complexion;

a national disgrace – is it too late to save face?

Home is where the heart is -what happened to common land?

House of Commons – fit for purpose? Social Housing for the commoner?

You say they’re scum: I say we need a civilised outcome –

a cool solution to this obscene disconnection,

protection-no-protection and disaffection.

There’s incomprehension- disconsolate empty buildings,

standing there while fattening speculators

go on long self-promotion A-list vacations.

Please keep our streets clean

5000 people sleep on ’em.

At number 10 talk of legislation to

dispossess squatters’ rights (desperation)

sick people dying in the shadows

there ain’t no regeneration once your dead.

Save upmarket properties from desecration

while bloated billionaires aren’t there

to see the aggression of the recession

casting shadows in Parliament Square.

We can’t afford to be doctrinaire

but each of us can say a heartfelt prayer.

There are corpses on the street but please don’t stare.

That homeless upstart has a heart – he’d like

a part in this re-gen-er-a-tion just to

live a good life free of temptation,

frustration and consternation –

four walls and roof over his head.

Please keep our streets clean

5000 people sleep on ’em.

There’s no re-gen-er-a-tion once you’re dead –

only speculation, desecration and recapitulation.

Let’s restore national pride:

for too long duplicity and iniquity

have despoiled our green and pleasant land.

Please keep our streets clean.

 

 

Extinction [No Longer]

no longer

[Part 1 – Items from a zoological survey discovered in a derelict Unesco library]

Darwin’s Frogs no longer leap in the shrinking wetlands of Chile

the Formosan Clouded Leopard no longer hunts in the mountains of Taiwan

the Sri Lankan Spiny Eel no longer swims in the rivers of Sri Lanka

the Eskimo Curlew no longer calls over the snowy grasslands of Greenland

the Santa Cruz Pupfish is extinct to be confirmed

the Western Black Rhinoceros no longer trundles across African plains

the Angel Shark no longer swims in the Black Sea latest data 2023

the Crescent Nail-Tailed Wallaby no longer lopes across the Australian Outback

the Giant Golden-Crowned Flying Fox no longer gorges on figs in the forest of Panay

Pallas’s Cormorant no longer fishes in the polluted rivers or toxic lakes of Russia

the Labrador Duck is extinct dead as a Dodo

the Javan Lapwing no longer flaps its wings in Indonesian skies

the Tahiti Sandpiper no longer plaintively pipes on the river banks of Tahiti

even our house sparrows are in the shit

[Part 2 – Gleanings from Professor Avaritia’s papers found in her desiccated garden shed]

there’s a sapient product of natural selection who

no longer harnesses wind-power or utilises solar energy

no longer holidays in the Bahamas or Thailand

no longer cultivates his own garden

no longer considers the categorical imperative

no longer gets the bullet train to work

no longer measures the rise in average temperature

no longer checks-in at the inter-city-airport Terminal

no longer rushes home to watch the World Cup

no longer develops a military capability second to none

no longer speculates as to whether she is a brain-in-a-vat

no longer does the school run before nine o’clock

no longer views the Holocaust exhibit of discarded shoes

no longer speculates whether the table still exists if there is no one to see it

no longer does the night shift on the maternity ward

no longer prepares ingenious explosive devices

no longer validates cogito ergo sum

no longer orders ‘seed potatoes’ early from a first-rate suppliers in London

no longer tackles the problem of social isolation among the elderly

no longer checks in at the local gym or does press ups before breakfast

no longer sets a moral compass in line with the Golden Rule

no longer scans next year’s seed catalogue for new variety perennials

no longer formulates any messages of reconciliation or peace

no longer takes the dog for a walk in the park

no longer asks if the ‘free-will defence’ is adequate to account for the problem of evil

no longer speculates what it is like to be a bat

no longer puts flowers on the family headstone

[Part 3 – Requiem]

no longer reproduces

no longer eats

no longer drinks

no longer sleeps

no longer laughs

no longer cries

no longer questions

no longer loves

no longer hates

no longer creates

no longer dreams

no longer breathes

Note: It is frightening but true: Our planet is now in the midst of its sixth mass extinction of plants and animals — the sixth wave of extinctions in the past half-billion years. We’re currently experiencing the worst spate of species die-offs since the loss of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Although extinction is a natural phenomenon, it occurs at a natural “background” rate of about one to five species per year. Scientists estimate we’re now losing species at 1,000 to 10,000 times the background rate, with literally dozens going extinct every day [1]. It could be a scary future indeed, with as many as 30 to 50 percent of all species possibly heading toward extinction by mid-century.

1. Centre For Biological Diversity

A Father’s Tale

It is a Father’s Tale

Time out of time I carried you in your dressing gown

downstairs out into the moonless night.

We gazed at a thousand suns studding the sky;

meandering along back lanes I lifted your arm

to point at Orion, drifting above rooftops.

We drew a ‘w’ and a triangle in the dark bowl,

traced a hunter’s belt and coloured in a lion,

a charioteer, a plough and a little bear.

I didn’t know then that you’d drift out of reach

when I reached for the thousand and one stories

to keep you listening – to keep you where

trolls, giants and goats sleep under bridges.

 

A Gravitational Wiggle

 

(A poem I wrote a while back published by Poetry Kit, UK)

On the morning of 14 Sept there was a slight wiggle in the arms of the twin Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory Detectors.

It was the day the kindly Evangelicals warned us:

you were in the kitchen but didn’t notice the minisculeripple

in your mug of coffee. I was driving to work when the SAT-NAV

brieflystuttered sending me dangerously close to a catastrophic event horizon.

A black cat crossed the road and blipped strangely in and out of existence.

Most people however, didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary:

brown eggs boiled, CDs played and twelve-sided coins were freshly minted

ahead of their release into the wideruniverse.

“It is impossible to make a forgery.” The most beautiful thought

the Royal Mint had ever had. I had an existential crisis the day after

when a black hole suddenly appeared in my bedroom. At least

that’s what I thought it was until I realised it was merely an unspecified amount

of darkenergy leaking out of a radiator thermostat. Now, I’m getting used to

living my life backwards. I’m looking forward to being born again.

Regeneration

Strangely I submitted this to an online literary magazine and it was accepted. Unfortunately I can’t remember which one;  shows how important it is to make a note of where we send pieces!

 

Remembrance & Redemption

Apologies to St John of the Cross, George Herbert, George Barker, George Macbeth, Edward Lucie-Smith, David Holbrook and Jack Clemo.

In the darkness I crept out, my house being wrapped in sleep.

I am the man who has seen affliction. My enemy has driven me away and made me walk in darkness. He has made my skin and my flesh grow old and has broken my bones.

I leaned into the driving sleet. I found them between far hills by a frozen lake on a patch of deep snow. How could I have been the only witness? Whoever lived in that house must have seen and heard what I saw and heard. So severe the black frost that it bent the white burden of the bracken. Only one red shoe and a discarded glove showed through the snow. I had a vision of the world’s dark deeds. I could smell incinerator smoke; I saw bodies shovelled into dark pits. Children buried in a frozen lake. How long must I bear the unbearable; how long in this shadow of death? I retraced my steps but only succeeded in going round in circles.

It goes, the fever leaves me – my clumsy tongue no longer bursts my lips. I wore a black band on my arm. I thought they’d crucify me; I heard howling throughout the dark night.

Two of them came like bears out of the white forest; one held me in his arms. Dead wood with its load of stones brought to life again. He touched me lightly on the cheek. I lay quite still. I threw away my care and left my fear and trembling behind. Bright sun flooded the forest floor.

I rose up from my ancient grave. Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright!

 

The Matrix Meets Midsummer Night’s Dream

Neo puts a hand to his head and touches his hair. This….this isn’t

real?

No, it is the mental projection…of your digital self. Lovers and

Madmen have such seething Brains, such shaping Phantasies, that

apprehend  More than cool Reason ever comprehends.

This_ is the world that you know. The world as it was at the end

of the twentieth century. It exists now only as part of a neural-interactive

simulation, that _we_ call the Matrix.  You’ve been living in a dream world, Neo.

This…is the world as it exists today. Are you sure that we are awake? 

It seems to me that yet we sleep, we dream.

What _is_ real? How do you _define_ real? If you’re

talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste

and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.

Tell them that I, Pyramus am not Pyramus, but Bottom the Weaver,

this will put them out of fear.

The earth, scorched . . .the desert of the real…We have only

bits and pieces of information, but what we know for certain

is that some point in the early twenty-first century

all of mankind was united in celebration, and then apocalypse.

We marvelled at our own magnificence…. the poet’s eye turns dreams to shapes and gives

to airy nothing a local habitation and a Name. . .

A singular consciousness that spawned an entire race -then you will see, it is

not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.

If we Shadows have offended

think but this, and all is mended: that you have slumbered here while these

Visions did appear and this weak and idle Theme, no more yielding but a Dream.