Batfold Wood
Galen O’Hanlon
To Batfold Wood I walked, along a nettled lane in dappled shade,
With the jackdaws knyick knyack chatter overhead,
And the chiffchaff chiff chaffs from a branch
Where the green meets the sky. Here, the grass
Is June-high, leaning in, heads bowed.
To Batfold Wood I walked, a hedgepath scapery
Of brambles, thumb-thick, clawing at my shins.
Through a gate, clink-clank-squelch, as the crows
Continue their discussions in some distant field.
To Batfold wood I walked, as the blackbird
Sang the most beautiful song I know,
And can never know.
To Batfold Wood I walked, a concrete
Water trough stark in the field. Its parent,
Old, stands a way off: empty, rusted through.
To Batfold Wood I walked, as surely as
Crow makes wing to rooky wood,
The breeze at my back, the ruts at my feet, lead me on.
The jackdaw mutterings have summoned me all week
But only now I listen, and go.
In Batfold Wood I stood with a family
Of five oak trees, fingers from a palm,
Mingling in the greens, whispering in the breeze.
From Batfold Wood I walked, and watched the crows
Mob a buzzard, screaming black in the green.
The buzzard, huge among them, drew a brown-grey
Brushstroke low over the grass, flowed into oak.
From Batfold Wood I walked, and the blackbird
Sang again, of how he has laughed and wept
And loved, his whole life in a whistle and trill.
If only I could sing the same.
From Batfold Wood I walked, across the cow-cropped
Grass, spotted with cowpats, the cowpats
Spotted with holes, like crumpets.
From Batfold Wood I walked, and in the field
The sun picks out the buttercup and clover and dock,
And the deep shadows of the hedge-clock
Tell me it will soon be time for home.
Ten lines of I am from
Galen O’Hanlon
I am from Pelican House, stuffed pelican in the hall, skulls on the bookshelves.
I am from Oxford in high summer, the cow parsley clouding the lanes.
I am from the farm, where there’s rust beneath the nettles, the apparition of my grandfather walking bow-legged to the cows.
I am from Scotland, the holiday ruined when the slice of Mars bar I had been promised, and lured up the drizzling hill with, was left in the car.
I am from a home of drink and drugs and the therapy that untangled it, years later.
I am from the bicycle, the smooth release at the top of the hill, the rush in your ears on the descent.
I am from the dressmakers, standing eye-level with the cutting table, the whirr of sewing machines spattering around me.
I am from looking at my phone too much.
I am from the days reading in a hammock, reading at the end of the day, reading my daughter to sleep, reading, reading, reading.
I am from the bridlepath, a deep holloway where the beech tree’s roots, elephant-skinned, flow from the banks.
I am from the nine-year-old world of adventure, goodies, baddies, and a dagger hidden – always hidden – in my boot sock.
Ten lines of I am from and Batfold Wood were written by Galen at Bore Place in June on the Dark Angels Summer Residential.