Tag: Northumberland
Migrators (Poem for Earthweal)
By the hard side
of the shore,
abutments jutting out
into raging waves,
I paused,
an incessant gale buffeting
my puny frame.
Dark promontories
primed me through sea mist;
they caught my gaze,
my historic sense,
like the herring gulls circling,
riding the howling wind.
I sensed you there,
your sea-grey eyes
staring into nothing,
your soft sing-song voice
of the Borders,
ready to spoil me with sweets,
port and lemon clutched
in your wizened hand.
Somehow you were left
in this nebulous place,
our collective cries screaming
“mother! mother!” —
plaintive calls unheard
in an entangled realm of souls,
given over to the elements.
Copyright Francis 2021
Haibun: ‘Isabella’
The sea was writhing at Seahouses. Northumbria wild, voices calling on the wind blown from Hyperborean reaches.
And then you — your skin grey like a seal, matching your eyes, a lantern jaw jutting out like a promontory, unyielding.
So then why are you so kind? Because you are blind, like nature, the tempestuous oceans thrusting, reaching, for just one fleeting sight of your son.
Who brought me this far?
Providence cannot explain
Winter’s existence
Copyright Francis 2020
Original Oil Painting, Bamburgh, Northumberland Coast, England
The coast of Northumberland in north east England is quite spectacular.
This is a painting based on a view of that coast near Bamburgh castle, the silhouette featured in this painting.
It is completed in oil on stretched canvas, size 41 x 31 cm, unframed.
copyright Francis Barker 2019
Poem ‘Bede’
Bede
It wasn’t at Jarrow where I sensed you
but on Bamburgh’s raging shore,
among the seaweed and razor shells
on gull peppered sands,
its castle brooding behind me
like a huge chiseled tomb.
North waves were scrambling,
spilling memories of guttural voices
disguised in flushing sound;
cries of songs, harps and old tales lost,
fragments I could almost hear
when I turned my head into the wind.
And who was the black figure
bent against the breeze,
absorbing sharp light
on that blinding beach?
I struggled through the dunes,
the little islands of sparse grass
and pygmy flowers —
but you were gone,
extant only in memory,
my boundless imagination,
and in your books
which carry me through centuries
on a primal wave,
each time I read your words
Poem and image © copyright df barker 2012
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