A Living Symphony - Commission

I was really pleased to be commissioned to write about Compton Verney's wildlife, inspired by the Living Symphonies art installation. Read my poem below and see my performance of it at Compton Verney's Afterhours event here.

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I want to add my voice

to the troop of fairy ink caps

which swarm the rotting trunks

like tiny umbrellad men

and the swell of jelly ears

mumbling from the woodland floor

climbing stacks of fallen branches

to the chorus of trees above -

the light greens, the dark greens

all the notes between.

The knotted canopy scattering light

which reaches my feet in splatters,

my feet which carry me

from the wood with the birdsong

which bubbles and trills

which seeps through leaves,

until one voice, louder, startled,

skitters out over the meadow

a tawny blur of bird

and urgency, a melodic solo

darting through insect plumes,

through butterflies and bees

marbled whites and ringlets,

meadow browns and burnets

small skippers in a sea of grasses

fescue and foxtail, timothy and rye,

the rusty tips of Yorkshire Fog,

the hogweed seed heads

slowly drying. Honey-sweet bedstraw,

knapweed explosions, yellow rattle spilling seed quietly.

A lick of wind carries a red kite overhead,

mewing, circling, wings spread

like tattered flags, approaching the bridge

and I follow, dodging the orange-skirted slugs who make fresh tracks upon

grass still damp from the last rain.

At the water's edge a scatter of swan-mussel shells strain and crack beneath me, etched with tooth marks

pocked and grooved, insides licked smooth, free from pale flesh, dredged from the silence of the lake by otters.

The shock of a kingfisher breaking  surface, diving for fish, an electric

flash of iridescence. So fast!

But the rowan-whiskered grebes

are undeterred, spreading their crests,

rearing their oily necks to bark

until dusk falls, until daubentons

replace dragonflies and demoiselles,

click-clicking and skimming the surface

with outstretched wings, clasping feet,

diving, rising, trailing beadlets of water

falling droplets of silver

sharing the sky with the swirl of pipistrelles and barbasteilles,

the dusty trails of moths

on meadowsweet summer nights

a glimpse of hunting barn owl,

a shadow, a screech…

I want to add my voice, be a part of the symphony, a small voice immersed

in the mystery, the beauty -

Compton Verney