Familiar
It’s not only in the colours and outlines
of the soft rounded hills and calabrese trees,
and every possible variant of the colour green, under a grey sky.
It’s also in the patterns of rust
drawing maps on corrugated roofs
of trackside farm buildings.
It’s in the wells of deep hoof print
in black sodden earth
surrounding a trough of water.
It’s in the living fence-posts of moss-damp wood,
and beacons of fresh-yellow timber
where it has been recently mended.
It’s in the crown-of-thorns birds-nest
visible through naked limbs of a winter oak.
It’s in the irregular circles of tiny yellow lichen
on the unique fragments of our planet
which make up ancient stone walls.
It’s in the fragile chandeliers, of frosted spiders-webs
that decorate an evergreen hedge.
When I return,
I find my home
in the details of Britain.
of the soft rounded hills and calabrese trees,
and every possible variant of the colour green, under a grey sky.
It’s also in the patterns of rust
drawing maps on corrugated roofs
of trackside farm buildings.
It’s in the wells of deep hoof print
in black sodden earth
surrounding a trough of water.
It’s in the living fence-posts of moss-damp wood,
and beacons of fresh-yellow timber
where it has been recently mended.
It’s in the crown-of-thorns birds-nest
visible through naked limbs of a winter oak.
It’s in the irregular circles of tiny yellow lichen
on the unique fragments of our planet
which make up ancient stone walls.
It’s in the fragile chandeliers, of frosted spiders-webs
that decorate an evergreen hedge.
When I return,
I find my home
in the details of Britain.
This poem was written in the autumn/winter of 2016, whilst I was visiting the UK.
Since moving to France, it feels like I have been given new eyes for my home country. A new appreciation for the beautiful and mundane details of the landscape and countryside, to which familiarity can blind us.
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