Bill Hook

by Peter Branson

Bill’s working hazel coppice, cropped
before the sap’s inspired to rise,
a five year cycle, each bald swathe
twin chains, the wood a furlong wide.

Hand grinding fines the whining edge
to razorblade, the ultimate
design, hooked like an eagle tooth
‘n’ claw, part sickle, hatchet, knife.

A slashing tool, one blow’s enough
for most, a kinder cut, the coup
de grace, held back for bolder staves.

No snarling power saw for him;
no goggles, helmet, gloves, gnarled fist
burl-oak, arm sculpted, leather-bound;
in shadow of his jaunty wide-
brimmed hat, face weathered-conker brown.

Shoots bolt, each season adding size,
like contour lines, man-made, contrived.

He bundles poles, above twelve foot
for hurdles, less for thatching pins;
trails brush on boles to shield new sprouts
from deer; relights old fires, that fresh
bread smell, a role for faggots in
his youth, the baker’s famished pyre.

Playing Dead

by Peter Branson

This autumn’s late, treescape and hedge dolled up
in party clothes. Dead wood’s been cleared, assailed
by snarling blade, teeth pulling torque and chain,
ploughed out, yet here’s an elm, its time well spent,
the sun-bleached corpus overlooked, as stark
as lightening tempered by a winter sky.
Like antlers, mast and gallants glow as white
as bone; some velvet bark clings on below.
Though dry as honeycomb in crumbling boards,
woodpecker holes beyond, like eyes in skulls,
the sculpted trunk’s a totem pole of lust.
Inside, where lichen feast and fungi dine,
vast confluence of creatures thrive, for, in
the wake of death, this constant wanton tide.

Hays Coppices

by Peter Branson

Where youth is drilled in ranks, green copse, as yet
un-thinned, or cropped at root, or pruned head height,
stands proud, where Mulch-Dick, elfric, dryad, hob-
thrush, Churnmilk Peg abide, rouse loud hosan-
nas for the lord of light, I raise this psalm.

Late autumn, dawn, a hostage to the night,
has broken bounds, line dancing wild delight
with darkness in retreat, his coppered feet
stirred embers glowing on a charging breeze,
like flick’ring pages from the Book of Kells.

Each step resolves a moving screen, sun strobe
between gaunt, pewter-clad  George Greens, wall-eyed
young squaddies on crusade, who guard, straight-bat,
defy importunate desire, this blind-
ing woodland glade, the midnight fox on fire.

Damascus Road Anthus Trivialis: the tree pipit

by Peter Branson

This Saturday, sun blessed, May blossoming,
via crumbled watermill, you’re on retreat,
bird you can’t place, its habit strange. It springs
from crown of hawthorn sapling, calls to mind
the meadow lark, wings whirring, launch from sward
to rise, sing, spiral, land, then soar afresh.
Thought-flicking where you’ve garnered, fix the page,
your used “Observers’ Book”, portrait an’ text.
This is no screaming popin-jay, all post-
war ration shades of grey. Each tumbling gyre,
no sacrilege to undermine, time stalls,
so when you stumble on those marbled gems,
miraculous, the gods onside for once,
though tempted, falling angel, you decline.

Hawk Rising

by Peter Branson

There’s me, that mould of feather, stalled beneath
its pall of rusting bracken, putrid mass.
They’ve got me wrong, those poets, my blood-glazed eye;
slim pickings, narrow margins, misery
one mischief ride away, the constant theme
of gorge, then fast till keen, no second chance.
The slightest injury, bland circumstance,
blunting my cutting edge, stirs loitering death.
You’ll fade to nothing by degrees, no snare
nor keeper’s neat dispatch – that still goes on –
nor poison, seamless crime these days. My world,
the sharp survive, Sod’s law, necessity,
hunter and prey. I’m here, soaring star high;
one blink, infinity, blinding blue sky.