Replanting the Great Caldonian Forest by Simon Kewin

In those days, Scots Pines lawned the Highlands
The Mesolithic Marten that ran through the branches
Could see both seas and never leave the touching leaves
Of giant cathedralling trees, shepherding their green,
Endless, restless hush, that rustled with death and life
>

With only island peaks visible above the flood
The Cairngorm Archipelago, the Cuillin Ridge Atoll
Until, in that first great clearance of the land,
By axe and ovine tooth, numberless trees fell one by one
Strewn like jackstraws, the devil playing at dominoes
>

Not that the mountains noticed the denudation
To them all living things are just fluff and dust
Titanic, elemental, their minds on bigger matters,
They grind each other's gradients, clash with the clouds,
Try to overtower the moon and pierce the sun
>

But sitting here on Sgurr an Airgid
It seems a shame all those trees are gone
And time that something was done
So I finish my apple and hurl the core,
Packed with its seeds, onto some fertile ground
And think to myself
That at least it's begun.

Simon Kewin, UK 

Standing Stones by Simon Kewin

Not the wind to worry the stones
Nor the passing shadows of crows
Casting brief cave-paintings there
Not the gazes of women and men
Nor, then,
The gazes of their great, great, great, great grandchildren
Only the years
Flake away by layers of dust
Peel back the skin, in search of the meaning
But the obelisks, obdurate
Remain silent, disdainful
Keeping their long purposes to themselves


Simon Kewin, UK

Coalmining by Simon Kewin

Bolted in its room we kept a mountainside
Of black scree waiting in avalanche
Its gradients too steep to clamber
Up to the distant square of the hatch
Where men, strength bowed by the weight of the rocks,
Lugged upon their supplicating backs,
Poured thunder into the hungry dark
And took away as limp bodies, the sacks

You rasped the shovel’s tongue in at its base
Let the mass of the mountain do the work
Rock rumbled forward to heal the erosion
While, two-handed, you heaved up the load
The nuggets gleaming, sleek with treacle,
Be careful not to drop any on the rug
But you threw it the last foot into the flames
For the satisfaction of the crunch and wumph

The stunned fire smoking pencil-grey
Then roaring back to hungry life, the
Alchemy of the rocks a miracle, lighting
To faces that peer from the glow
While we, heliocentric, return to our orbits
Bask in the heat of carboniferous suns
Arrayed as planets and the moons of planets,
Huddled in pairs for the passing warmth.


Simon Kewin, Herefordshire, UK

a poem by Simon Kewin

’
Curled up asleep there
as seraphic as
the furled e in serene.
Crossed feet for
perfectly drawn serifs,
your soft body
a rune of tightly cuddled limbs
as you revert to
the bliss of the huddled womb.
A quiet quotation mark
at the start of a life's long speech,
the hushed susurrus of a slowly drawn breath



Simon Kewin, Herefordshire, UK