Ayers Rock

Flames flickering in the indigo night,
Dancing, they light the circle of faces.

Alongside Oolera, earlier painted blood-red
By the setting sun and visited by Wanambi
The rainbow serpent, - now lies dark and quiet,
Listening to the murmurings, watching for the spirits
That will surely arrive.
From the distant domes of Katajuta,
Across the Valley of the Winds.

The circle of faces, the droonoodoo,
Whispers of the rain man, Pakadringa,
And of Tya, Doowi and Alcheringa, -
The Aborigine Dreamtime.

Whitsunday Nineteen Ninety-Five

Silence, pierced only by the seagulls cry,
Jagged rocks sculptured by the wind and sea,
Tenacious thrift clinging to the rock,
Their heads, magenta, nodding to the breeze.
Stones, now scattered, evidence of the Picts,
Grazing cattle studying the sea.

Did we pass through some unseen barrier
To arrive in this timeless, silent scene?
Footprints vanish in the rebounding turf,
We leave no trace that we have ever been.

Defiant land, sea, unclouded heaven,
From this vantage point, given a clear day,
Ancient kingdoms, it's said, - seven,
Can be seen from here, Mull of Galloway.

Thoughts in a Welsh woodland

The Autumn sun filters through the trees and butterflies dance in its light. Leaves appear motionless until one, as though imitating the butterflies, flitters to the ground, feeling obliged to fall because today is the first of September.

Somewhere in the stillness of it all, birds call to one another and a squirrel bounds from branch to branch with comsummate ease.
Beyond the field a brook babbles because that is what it is supposed to do, making smooth the stones as it swirls around the corner it has carved out, leaving behind its ripples to prove that it had passed this way.

Close by in Salem graveyard lie Davies, Edwards, Howells and Williams, the slate headstones of their tombs at one with Nature, their wrought-iron surrounds leaning as though weakened as hosts to the ivy.

Incongruous obelisks of polished marble, products of more recent times, stand on the higher slope commanding an even better view of the landscape, as though in a theatre's more expensive seats.

Come the dusk and the woodland bats know that it is their time. They unhook themselves from daytime beams and flap about, their dark cloaks silhouetted against the opaline sky.

Ullswater

Craggy, Cumbrian mountains
Secure in their immortality,
Skirted by birch and willow
Unmoving for want of a breeze.

The ewe lies watching her lamb,
Tail quivering like a catkin, it
Scrambles onto the rock and
Poses, before tumbling down again.

The waters of Angle Tarn
Come rushing, falling, telling the same
Ageless tales, they join Coldrill
Past Hartsop Fold, on to Patterdale.

They flow into the lake and,
Sighing upon her shores, they shimmer,
Then, with Sleep, lie glass-like, still,
Until Narcissus has his mirror.

Winter on the Solway Firth

Scots pines etched against ice-blue sky,
Sunlit sheep mirrored in the mere,
A flight of geese honking overhead
Blackbellie mountain sleeps for another hundred years.

At Dundrennan, the abbey's ruined walls,
Silhouetted against the light,
Conceal the fantasmas of bygone monks
Awaiting the shadows of the night.

Smoke from chimneys over Palnackie,
Boats shelter in the bay.
If I should die tomorrow, - no matter,
For I have seen it all today.

The Lady On The Bus - 1952

Every morning at a quarter to eight
Gullyferry, she gets on the bus there
Wearing the same dress, sits in the same seat,
Faded straw hat, the smell of unwashed hair.

Her journey's end is the railway platform
Where she will meet the first train of the day,
Searching the faces, hoping, then forlorn,
Until the last train, - and she turns away.

It is seven years since the War was won,
Seven years of daily journeys that she
Has been coming to 'meet' her only son,
She disbelieved "missing, presumed drowned at sea".
JB

An Afternoon With Bessie

In my childhood years our bread was delivered by Ronnie and Herbert and Bessie the horse which pulled the baker's van. One glorious school-holiday afternoon, my friend Averil and I went with them on their round. We clambered up onto the driver's perch and were allowed to hold the reins. Bessie clip-clopped up Broadway and Broadoak Road, she knew all the houses where she had to stop and would stand waiting whilst one of the boys delivered the bread in a large basket, - it was usually Herbert, the one with cottonwool stuffed in his ears. Ronnie was the sparkling one who, when we reached the farm, pretended that a loaf had fallen off the van and then fed it to the ducks and moorhens waiting on the pond.
To us, our afternoon with Bessie was an adventure, - the sort that is no longer available for today's children.

On Leaving Scotland

The skies were sad to see us go,
Clouds weeping copiously,
So intent upon their own grief,
Noticing not our misted eyes.

Their tears became rivers, creeks,
Cascade and waterfall,
Our tears were but salt upon our cheeks,
Serving no purpose at all.

JB

The Last Journey

Dressed in brilliant colours,
Detached by the breeze.
Floating, gliding twirling,
With memories of green.

Glinting in dappled sunlight
On the journey down,
The first leaf of Autumn to
Fall and lie still on the ground.

Dressed in brown, there is a chance
To live again, albeit brief,
When lifted and carried by the wind,
Or scuffed by joyous feet.

JB

Backyard Jeweller

Diamond necklace in the early morning light,
Transformed into filigree and silvered by the midday sun.
There on a side strand, admiring what she's spun,
Sits Arachne, - waiting..............waiting.
JB

TEANNIE

When Eartha Kitt died in December 2008 her obituatists wrote of her resentment at being 'given away by her mother, forced to leave their home on a cotton plantation and live with an aunt in New York's Harlem'. One could be forgiven for wondering if it were the 'giving away' or the horrendous environmental shock of which she was resentful.

I immediately recalled my maternal grandmother's childhood when she left her Aberdeenshire roots. Christina Pirie, always 'Teannie' to the family, bore no resentment to her adored parents for being 'taken away' from them (as she always referred to it) nor to the childless aunt and uncle who 'took' her to live at their home in Bootle which was not far from the docks and about 4 miles north of Liverpool's city centre.

Born in 1871 Teannie was the 8th child of John and Catherine Pirie of Tweeddale where her father farmed 74 acres in the parish of Kinkell. Teannie had enjoyed the happiest early childhood surrounded by her loving family and the Aberdeenshire countryside. She found no joy living as an only child in alien urban surroungings. Her guardians were not accustomed to the ways of children, especially one who had previously only known life in the countryside. There was no porridge on the menu at number 28 Campbell Street, - instead it was bread and warm milk for breakfast taken in the basement of the stern house. Passers-by on the pavement above could peer in through the kitchen window and see the child struggling to swallow the contents of the bowl in front of her. One such was a classmate who would later announce at school "I saw you eating your 'pobs' this morning!"

Once a year Teannie and her aunt journied to the Aberdeenshire farm where they spent the Summer holidays. Came the dreaded day of return to Lancashire and the child secreted herself in one of the farm's many hiding-places in the hopes of being left behind, - but she was always eventually discovered. (The photograph shows Teannie during one of her 'holidays' standing centre surrounded by her family)

On the 4th May 1886 when Queen Victoria visited Liverpool, Teannie was there to see her getting into an open carriage and would later describe Her Majesty as 'a little lady with a parasol'.

As the years passed, Teannie Pirie, having done well at school, started to train in teaching. Aged 19 she and her guardians had moved to 57 Talbot Street, away from the docks and more towards the city. Miss Pirie had attained the position of Assistant Teacher. Two years later, fully qualified, she returned to Aberdeenshire and held the post of Teacher at Rathen school. This was a time of her life that she would later describe as one of the happiest and most carefree. In the village of Rathen she lodged at The Manse with the Rev and Mrs Kellas, but every school holiday was spent with her family back at the farm near Inverueie.