Epic Journey from the Town the the Wild Woods & back again in Five Minutes

Their fundamental mistake was in trying to take refuge from their sadness in beauty
Mistaking love for some kind of reward in a fanfare of trumpets & horns
Turning away from the mind-wind that sings of the instant of awakening
They lost the natural  opulence of our background radiation that surrenders & sighs
Believing that freedom must be found over there on the roadside of the wide, shouting world.

& the steps that they took from their doors in the safety of senile suburbia
Emptied their minds of entertainment, more terrifying without adverts to distract them
Years of eating trash had made them allergic to the taste of green leaves & river water
& longing for email or phones or what they called the music of the moment
They joined hands & took comfort in the simplicity of discovering that everyone is afraid.

Thrown together in a chorus of moans,  denied any authority figures
Without maps, on foot, they set out to seek their refugee misfortune
Pavements became unfamiliar, streetnames, meaningless syllables
Hunger was only one of the many kinds of emptiness that they felt inside
Eyes reflecting the pale light of a Saturday morning in February.

Daffodils, thorn trees, thrushes & crows would bear witness
To the human river of in breaths & out breaths steaming in the air
Of eary morning, limbs folding & unfolding themselves over grass
Carpet of gum spotted concrete, tarmac, leaf fringed lane
& all they could think of was what might happen at the end of  Story-day.

The road lead out of town, out of time, it became older with every twist & turn
It was time-travel,  through the fields, through the moors, through the woods, medieval, prehistoric
Marrow of the hill laid bare, twinkling grains of the ancient desert
First song, shouted from an amphibian throat at the sun
Buddha of the Carboniferous, all black & gold, worshipped by scorpions.

Now the road of the mind's yearning became an evening track on a wooded slope
Darkened by centuries of rain growth & green shadow bank
Beneath, the sound of cold waters making their merry heathen way to the sea
Ahead, the huffing of the wind among the tall grey ash trees on the ridge
Warm rook voices looping  overhead to announce the arrival.

Stopped by the edge of a gulley, waiting for the moment of transcendent understanding
That never came, a shuddering began, a nausea of terror,
Skin-wincing recognition of the long legged old deaths dark-curled tightly in their nests
Waiting for sunset storms & cries of fear & pain in the night land
Wild, hairy old things that everybody knows the look of!

They will come out running, in fierce, jumping huge scampers
Eyes burning with fires coloured by  delight & cruelty
Skinny & pale, drumming their feet with impatient hunger
Snatching, catching, nipping, biting soft skins:
Carrying the chosen to the dusty tunnels of no-return.

Then one pilgrim exclaimed & pointed to the wet cliff on the other side
The perfect simulacrum, caught-created by the chance-dimming light,
Eyes closed as if in sleep or bliss, face turned  to her left
Breast pointing out  from a cloak, hip lost behind ferns:
Our Lady of the Gorge,  green & golden,  Queen of the Inbetween.

Round bellied, crowned by pendant holly, face all peace
Fallen beech & rowan, ivy clad in an embrace at her feet
She loves them all, even the death spiders in their dark webs of pain
& sends beams of meaningfulness into everyone's hearts where they stand in silent awe
Shocked, as if suddenly awoken from an illness of chaos & sweat.

It is just a mossy stone in a Shropshire vale,
But this recognition does not dwell among trees, stones, clouds & birds
Any more than between four walls, on four wheels, on legs walking
Nor among dreams of romance about adventure, spaceships or celebrities
Nor any golden age in a useless future past.

Let us walk on the high hill where the first green is growing
With winter gale carnage of birch tree pieces like beached whales
To the path, to the road, to the town, singing our song
Waving to the children, greeting the gulls in a farmer's field
Set free from our fever of searching, into lucid simplicity.

Barry Patterson 15-02-08