Gather, East Leicestershire, February 2021 | Mark Goodwin & Nikki Clayton

 
can we choose

to climb through
a snowflake’s

lattice
or go

the way of
crows through

trees
that way or

this snow

has no
will
 

 
say hello
to the

tele
graph

pole
here

in the
snow

listen for

white
no

ise
 

 
here
at be

lief’s

thic
ken

ing
edge

a way
of sky

starts

to flake
prop

hecy
 

 
once made

cultivation’s
marks in

fields

with a tractor
of dream

now as
trees’ feet

tread along
hedges

a sky’s

solidity
drags

over ground
snow’s

harrow
 

 
in a winter’s
fields go

gather

memories’

white falling
feathery

specks
 

 
for years trees
as children

walked on
the spot

and now
as snow cleans

away most
details

it can
be seen

that the dark
ness of

wood just
as flesh

has thickened
 

 
the snowcloud’s
receding

edge trails

( through the clear
   blue )

pieces of

                       soft

                                          falling

         self
 

 
so is it
twigs &

branches that
call us

back

or tracks
across

ground
that un

ravel our
distances

or is it
that fine

line
bord

er where

sky’s will al
ways el

udes
us
 

 
cattle may pass
through a gate

way

just as light
may fra

              cture

and frisk
across snow

                            whilst moles
                            move

                            through soil
 

 

Photographs by Nikki Clayton
Poems by Mark Goodwin
The photographs were taken on 10 February 2021, during a walk that began & ended at the medieval village of Old Ingarsby, and took in the medieval villages of Quenby & Cold Newton. The photograph with the church is of the village of Hungarton, approaching from the south.

 

Mark Goodwin‘s publications include All Space Away and In (Shearsman, 2017), Steps (Longbarrow Press, 2014), and a new collection, Rock as Gloss (Longbarrow Press, 2019), acclaimed by Andy Clarke in Climber magazine as ‘An exhilarating journey through the glorious variety of UK rock, including mountain rhyolite, eastern grit, Llanberis slate… a fascinating and rewarding collection that amply repays backtracking and re-reading.’ Click here to visit the Rock as Gloss microsite for extracts, essays and audio recordings. You can also order the hardback via PayPal below:

Rock as Gloss: £12.99 (hardback)

UK orders (+ £1.85 postage)

Europe orders (+ £5 postage)

Rest of World orders (+ £7 postage)

 

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