Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

   A rough track lined by ancient walls leads sharply upwards, past disused olive groves where spotted pigs still free range. In the lee of the walls, unfamiliar wild flowers shelter, avoiding traffic and passing feet. Above the groves the land opens out into foothills, here, great iron gates give entrance to the estate.

                             guarding the old manor
                          stone lion stares
                                    down weed choked paths

   The farmhouse sits beyond, backing into its own private valley, facing down to the bay and the road that heads round the peninsular. It once owned all the land, as far as the eye could see, and most of the town, which steadily encroaches on the lower meadows. It was a centre, a hive of industry, a seat of power, a source of oil and cheese, wheat and wine, oranges, melons, horses and bulls, but now it stands derelict, witness to the inevitable spread of tourism around the coast.
                                the disused terrace
                            propped by its own dead limbs
                            a last almond tree

   Through its yard, past the ruined wash house, the stables and the dilapidated out houses, the path rises ever higher, begins to pick its way between patches of gorse and unkempt pomegranates leaning fence posts and rusting wire. It passes over slabs of rock, polished by wheel and hoof in the past. It disappears under gravel, re-emerges to climb sun-baked inclines, cross deep ruts caused by winter floods, levels out over terraces of tough highland grasses. The sun slides behind clouds, and towering mountains close in to form a high valley.

                      a rainbow in dense air
                 sunlight just reaching
                           a distant crest

   Two ravens flap leisurely from peak to peak making curious, catlike, sounds. The surrounding scrub is full of unseen life. Movements in the corner of the eye, snatches of song, a branch shivers, something crawls in the leaf litter, a flash of lizard. What was once a flourishing manor has now returned to nature.   Tall grasses and stunted trees take over the hill pastures. Dry stone walls, so perfectly built, have crumbled, and feral goats disappear like shadows through the breaching.

                                       the mountain sweet
                               herbs and ancient olives share
                                                    secret songs with birds

   Ahead the track constricts between two great rock formations, a small pass. Growing in the crevices, dwarf ferns shelter snails, once keenly sought, a delicacy, but now prospering. Moss, like forests of tiny trees, or rolling hills, cushions in the shade at the base. Water trickles from the face, a landscape in miniature, I stop, add pebbles to a cairn nearby, balance the capping stone, it rocks gently.

                                     on the limestone cliff
                                  a stunted fig      in silence
                                              a falcon glides

   Beyond the pass the track winds down to a small plateau, the remains of alpine meadows, where a ruined chalk kiln lies, and the traces of Iron Age settlements are scattered, undetectable, amidst boulders and shrubs. On the opposite side of the valley, a small stand of maritime pine marks another site, now abandoned, its well silted up. The buildings have been reduced to rubble, a haunt of rodents. A booted eagle glides silently over, circles and drops, carries its prey to a ledge high on the cliff, where it merges with the colour of the surrounding stone. Leaving the path, I clamber up the steep valley sides and sit amongst the fallen rocks and dwarf fan palms.

       mixed with the sweetness
of wild dates      the taste of blood
                                        from their thorns

   From here I can almost sense what the eagle or the falcon sees, evidence of civilisation eroding back into wilderness, rusting machinery covered in vines, a rotting cart, irrigation channels filled with soil. A gate lies flat, nature’s balance returning, a softening, its voice rings deep. A dung beetle labours across my path. There is a tangible smell of mystery, of wild herbs I can’t quite name, of split stone, resin, baked earth, alpine air, it sweeps the valley, it penetrates, uplifts.
                                    peak overlaps peak
                              a wild honey smell
                                            thickens the wind

   The sky is now ominously dark. Shafts of sunlight briefly illuminate the screes, moving spotlights cross the plateau and fade as clouds close in. Purple and grey cumulus builds, layer upon layer, rolls higher and higher. Small birds scatter, take shelter in the gorse, the sound of bees dies down. The air vibrates with a different note, fine rain mists the valley, somewhere a goat bleats.
  
                           in the mountain pass
                      rolling over asphodels
                                     muffled thunder