Poetry

Writing family, friendship and climate

I've written poetry ever since I knew what poetry was. Poems of mine have been anthologised in a range of collections from my first for the then Schools Poetry Association and in subsequent years in schoolbooks and student anthologies, such as 'Poetry Street' and textbooks for Collins, OUP etc. My first collection was a collaboration with friend John Pownall called 'Limited Ballads'. We are working on our second collection, 'Spark and Ember' and hope to publish it shortly.

Read a new poem by me, from the collection, below. It's about the traces of those who walked before us, and whose tracks echo like ghosts, reminding us of history and our responsibility.

The Way through the Woods (after Kipling)

We walk this wide path through the estate,
Bordered by ‘Keep Out’ signs and exhortations
Not to scare game nor stray from track,
Or linger in the twilight as late sun fades.

In sawdust verge, neat piles of logs
Are stacked up high, and a man beside a jeep
Twists wire and stretches it between two stakes.
He nods, then turns again to finish off the job.

It’s easy to forget that what we think Nature’s way,
Is often nothing more than landscape shaped
By our controlling hand, even in this broad leaf realm,
Where there is little light between oak and elm.

Yet once, before enclosure, there was wildness,
A different sort of scrubby rough terrain,
Thorny, tough and unremarkable,
A mess unsuited to the painter’s frame.

I wonder about this walk, the man, these dots
Across the map, their provenance, and who first trod
These same steps, perhaps like us calling to his dog,
Or alone, finding this quickest route towards the sea.

Perhaps their ghosts still linger in the hawthorn,
Straining knotty sinews to break free;
But unheard, like children of a pagan god,
Their games are stifled, walled within this shady wood.

Mike Gould

Poetry

The Way through the Woods (after Kipling)