Over at Seatree, we have had some more copies of Chris’s books printed for direct sales. This meant another print run, and as ever, we got a couple of proofs printed to check before the larger run… all of which means that we have proof copies of ‘Listing’ and ‘Where the streams come from’ up for grabs. FOR FREE! We will even pay postage.

(One book has a couple of typos, but if you are anything like Chris, you will never notice them!)

To enter our little free draw, all you have to do is to visit our facebook page and post a comment in the giveaway post. Perhaps tell us your favourite poem (even if it is not one of Chris’s!) or even post a few lines of your own?

(If you are not on FB, drop us a line and we will enter you anyway!)

We’ll feed your name into our magic randomiser, then contact the winners directly.

Meanwhile, here is a newish poem, as yet unpublished, to whet your poetic whistles;

…

Bookshop

Written in ‘Bookpoint, for ‘National poetry day’ 2018

.

So many books

Every spine like undrunk wine

Every page contagious

For words weigh nothing here

They are floating free

while I sup tea.

.

Perhaps two or three might land on me-  

Like birds – or spores – or seeds,

For I am the soil in winter.

.

High on a shelf

sits poor Gandalf.

Atticus Finch is caught in a clinch

with Molly Bloom.

Tom Sawyer hides poor Jim

In the bottom drawer.

Moriarty invites Jack Kerouac

to party out back.

Catherine Earnshaw

roams the moor no more

She drinks tea with me

In  Bookpoint

We live in a very beautiful place. Familiarity breeds a certain level of complacency, but I only have to leave our little corner for a few days and I find myself missing it. Specifically, I miss the quiet shelter of the oak trees, through we glimpse the water in summer but whose branches become frames for silver light as soon as autumn fades.

Little moments hit me like blessings. The red squirrels that dance along the finest tracery. The mixed blessing of deer munching in the bushes. The stars who have no competition. These blessings seem totally undeserved. Even allowing for the fact that reality is always so much more nuanced than a view from distance, we seem to be living out a kind of middle-class fantasy that is simply unavailable and unatainable to most. How did we end up here?

• 

I suppose part of the answer is that we decided that we wanted to live more simply, with less impact on the planet, and with more connection to the earth, which is why I find videos like this so inspiring;

Since we moved here three years ago, we have done very little to the inside of the house (although this might be about to change) but we have done lots to the outside;

New chicken run

• 

Poly tunnels x2

dammed a stream to make a water cress pond.

We have also cleared massive amounts of buddlea and huge overgrown Leylandii hedges, and have planted about 20 fruit trees, 5 oak trees and 50 silver birch trees.

I have built some outdoor raised beds (the climate is so wet here that we need to improve drainage) but we need more of these, and they need a fence to keep the deer away from them.

What really interests me is how we can use a small (ish) parcel of land to produce significant amounts of food. Part of this is about recognising what is already there. Some of this is obvious, like the wild garlic.

We have also tapped birch trees for sap, used many flowers and plants in salads and picked berries and crab apples.

The next step is to start introducing more edible plants into our forest garden. I tried to plant Wild Mustard, but this does not seem to have survived, and the tea plants are looking rather ropey (more eperimenting to be done with different plants here.)

I have no confidence in my mushroom and funghi collecting skills, but have decided to sow my own spores so I can be sure what I am getting- so we have some oyster mushroom spores for next season.

We have a long way to go, but watching videos like the one above makes me think that what we are aiming for is entirely possible.

Two things occur to me as I write this.

1.We reap not only what we sow, but also much that has been given to us by grace.

2. We live the life we decide to live, even if by default.

In the spring. In partnership with Wild at Art, I am leading a group of people on a poetry retreat. You can read more about it here.

This retreat will use a familliar format to ones that I have led before. To spend time in the wild beauty of an uninhabited deserted island in spring is a truly magnificent experience, but retreats are much more than tourism. They are about delberately going deeper, beyond the surface of things. If there is a language for this kind of journey, it is poetry.

They say that everything that ever was

Is with us still  and that we are all

Connected

Our DNA, or so they say,

Contains some manta ray

Along with pterodactyl

Every leaf and every tree

Grows in you and grows in me

Every fish and every bird

Listens close to our every word

For everything belongs to everything

And we are all

Connected

It is my intention to read poetry together and to encourage one another to write. We will have some activities ready that may help, but the island is our main tutor.

This retreat will of course follow a long tradition of pilgrimmage to these islands. It will remember some of our Celtic ancestors, and the journeys they made.

By the way, Ute Amann-Seidel (who set up and runs Wild at Art) was on radio Scotland last week, talking about her other project, Fire and Rain, which grew out of her loss and bereavement. You can find out more about this by following this link.