Some Images in Paint and Pencil

 

A few images created over time 2010-2018. Mostly acrylic on wood blocks, but also pencil sketches and a couple of  larger pieces 

A Kelling Memory

 

Autumn and winter days at our cottage in Kelling were marked occasionally by the arrival of guests of the Kelling estate. These guests - paying guests - came for the entertainment offered by the regular pheasant shoots. Here is a reflection, written as the spent pellets rained upon our cottage conservatory. It was completed in Oxfordshire sunshine a few days ago.

The Reluctant Sportsman

The guns speak a fate. Keep 
Brave as the birds break cover.
Squeeze the trigger. The flock in disarray
Hovers then darts loose over the fields.
Shame hinges on a miss. This
Is what we expected. The land over stiles
Marks an escape. I am reptile.

The guns settle. Held, not fired.
Brave as the birds break cover.
Finger stays curled. The flock in disarray
Hovers then darts loose over the fields.
No one sees the stillness. This
Is not what was expected. The land over stiles
Marks a passage. I stay human.

The grass parts. A rustle speaks.
Brave as the sky calls danger.
Muscle recalls the flint of air
As bodies scatter, low and rising.
A crack behind. Not struck. This
Time, still breathing. The land over stiles
Means a distance. I am creature.

Kelling October 2015/Oxon July 2025

• Stanzas 2 and 3 developed with assistance of Co-Pilot AI

Treescape in Watercolour 2022

Tracks: A Revision after a Decade

 

The tracks hold signs of wisdom planted
Full deep in the way. Here a flame
Burns and flickers, flickers, burns
And lights rocks against rock,
Another shadow, a different shade,
A shiver of memory thrust to mind.

At the broken stile, a figure stood.
Not stranger, not guide.
He said:
What you carry was not gathered,
But given—before the path began.

To survive in this wild place
In this wilderness scaffold, simply face
The shades as they speak of times made strange
By current tread.

The dead speak in fire,
Not in voice or name.
Hold fast to that light. It shines
Miraculous, though too often maligned.

 

-          -    Kelling July 2015/Oxon July 2025

• Stanza 2 developed with  assistance of Co-Pilot AI, with reference to Eliot's "Compound ghost" in "Little Gidding"

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