It feels like that - aimless shouting. Maybe I haven’t invested enough time into mastering the art of Substack. With so many voices all calling to be heard, I sometimes wonder whether it is pointless trying. But perhaps I owe it to my twenty subscribers, if they haven’t yet walked away, to keep going, however intermittently.
So here goes.
I often worry about short-changing readers when I write brief poems. And I worry too that a poem that is purely descriptive, without any seeming connection to anything beyond merely the picture painted by words on the page, is somehow inadequate. I am very much of the school that says ‘poetry is the art of overhearing yourself saying things you didn’t know you knew’.
But when I revisit this simple descriptive four-liner, it takes me straight back to that morning, that place, its smells, its touch and all the reassuring comfort it offers. And, for once, I think that is enough. Do you?
Cheviot Spring
Catch it on the morning breeze
beyond the oystercatcher’s screech
the rich damp shuffling scent of cattle
snuffling warm against the sharp blue sky.
Very evocative Hugh. Captures perfectly how nature is restorative, invigorating and comforting, all at once.