Author: amhiggs5240c8dcec

Question: When is a forest not a forest?
Answer: When it's a crop.

A human-resource,
A recyclable fast-food container,
A flat-packed furniture force of nature,
To save face, replace single-use plastic waste,
Feeding our need to be seen to be green.

Question: When is a forest not a forest?
Answer: When there is nothing but silence.

No birdsong, no deer,
Just a cowering sense of fear
As the echoes of massacring chainsaws
Rip through layers of bark, skin, time -
Bleeding sawdust tears.

A nightmare, this reality-dream.
If a tree falls in the forest
Does it even make a sound?
Does it's life even count
If no-one hears it scream?

Question: When is a forest not a forest?
Answer: When this crop is a full stop.

A circle of green
With a dark centre.
Sustainable, yes?
But what of the cycle?

Question: When is a forest not a forest?
Answer: When it’s buried in greenwash, apocalyptic ash.

Narrow, pine-needled eyes
Stare out at an Alien landscape
No discernable life,
Save for a discarded mars bar wrapper
Floating lifelessly on a tyre-treaded puddle.

Look up, and out, beyond your comfort zone…
This is no ordinary forest,
This is a crop circle,
Life-cycle,
Lung.

A Wensley 
26.06.2023
Inspired by our walk in Great Wood

Familiar branches
Outstretched to me today, 
Just a tree?
No.

This tree is family,
It's where I learned to climb,
Have courage, 
To look in awe from
The highest heights, 
And feel like never coming down.
Just a tree?
No.

This tree has weathered,
With many a child gathered
Around it's great girth
Through the years;
Who searched among its patch of leaf-littered earth, 
To claim it’s annual treasure trove - 
Fresh conkers,
Spiky-shelled seeds of joy,
With which to conquer
The art of friendships,
Relationships.
Just a tree?
No.

This tree was our social media,
Grasping at boughs with calloused hands,
(proper digit stabbing, bark not screen lark) - 
We swung together;
Finding ropes from our parents' sheds,
Hammers, boards, 
Laughing together, we ate our hoards, 
Told stories and put the world to rights!
Just a tree?
No.

A childhood.
Yes.

Don't look back they say,
Look forward.
But I can't bear to,
When all I see is - 
Just a tree.

Bowing out of life.
Bereft of it's seeds of joy now, 
Bereft of children.

Just a tree.
Dying before me.

A Wensley
Inspired by a veteran horse chestnut in 'The Gully' - East Quantoxhead

Brush in hand

He paints

The blue sky grey;

The cliff edge - 

He shrouds

In sea-mist mystery.



In a chance moment

We pass

And glance the ethereal. 



Against the elements,

He stands

Impressive, 

Calm,

Expressive, 

Purpose-poised...



And with each self-assured stroke

Blends the forces of nature

With an azure-eyed smile.



A Wensley
8.12.2022
Inspired by a walk along the Kilve to Lilstock Coastpath 

As you walk...
feel the fresh air on your face, 
hear the sounds around you, 
the chatter of birds maybe, 
the distant sound of a tractor perhaps, 
ploughing and sowing new seeds. 
You too are a seed that strives to grow to your full potential.

As you continue to walk...
notice your colleagues, 
friends or family, 
coaches or guides, 
walking beside you, 
and as they offer words of encouragement, 
feel how much easier the path becomes, 
less rough and stony, 
more soft or smooth under your feet.

As you reach the top of the hill...
take a deep breath in, 
and in awe take in the view before you; 
a wide expanse stretching out before you, 
a future open to all the possibilities.  
Your view is no longer narrowed by your challenges, 
you are free to choose your path. 
Free to grow, unlimited.

Take another deep breath...
and keep walking towards your own horizon.  
You will get there, 
one step at a time. 

A Wensley
7/2/23
Great Hill, Drove Road

A soft, dappled light

Nurtures radiance within.

You are my heart-beat-slower

Soul-source-glower, 

Magical-miracle-mind-blower.

Take me away... 



...from the grinding growl of engines,

Tyre treads tearing over tarmac,

Ferrous-voices, corrosive-critical,

Trauma-triggering train-tracks, 

Builders lunch-van-trill-drill-tunes, 

Paper over all the cracks...



Pause...Inhale...



A soft, dappled light

Nurtures radiance within.

You are my heart-beat-slower

Soul-source-glower, 

Magical-miracle-mind-blower.

Take me away...



...Raise the volume of the chiffchaff

Robin-rhymes above the giff-gaff,

Tik-tok, Big-mac,

Crude-clipped-advertising noise-naff...



Pause...Exhale...



A soft, dappled light

Nurtures radiance within.

You are my heart-beat-slower

Soul-source-glower, 

Magical-miracle-mind-blower.

Take me away...

 

...Zone out amongst the power

Of blue-carpets-scent-of-flowers

Let the wind perform it's symphony-

Through the fresh-unfurling canopy...



Pure ecstasy, engage it

Need it, seed it, feed it, rave it,

This drug is REAL.



Sol-it-ude. 



Crave it? 



Save it.



A Wensley

16.04.2023

I walk with my mind open;

Streams passing through my consciousness,

Birds nesting in my eardrums, 

Hooves marking muddy matter, 

Bark rivuletting lichened neural pathways

To moss-encased magical realms... 

Immersed - 

Every step a mindful moment with Mother Earth. 



You walk with our app open;

Poets dripping water-borne words of wellbeing through your ear-buds, 

Their souls laid bare for your soles to follow.

Notice how our undulating voices

Lead you,

Immersed - 

Every step an alternative dimension.



There is no right way

To experience life,

But to be open

Is the first step

On your journey.



Go forth,

Immersivity is waiting,

She will show you the way. 


A Wensley

24/5/23

Inspired by Hodder's Combe

Being brought up, as a small village mouse:

The landlord, Sir, in his big house, 

My Father working on the land, 

My Mother caring, soft of hand - 

I had no need, no want of things,

Felt joy in all that nature brings. 



Our summer days passed on the tops of round bales,

Making perfume from flowers, racing woodlice and snails, 

While Dad's calloused palms were crossed hard for pay, 

Time taken in lieu, few holidays away. 



We don't regret our youth and teens, 

Building dens and damming streams

Freedom calling on the breeze, 

Sinking in mud, right to our knees, 

Out playing games til the moon was up

Drinking squash and making wups.



Then back to school for the next term, 

Til we were old enough to yearn;

Buses to school through country lanes

Hours we won't get back again - 

But, good friendships made and books well read, 

No smartphones then to blur our heads.



Celebrations, there have been many, 

Family parties, fetes, make-merry,

All held in the village hall. 

Sunday School, Monday School, Brenda - thanks all;

Posies for Mother's Day, carols and hymns,

The Church was our flock and it gathered us in. 

Christingles and christenings, nativities too

Brought us a light that lasted years-through.



I moved out, to town mouse, when I learned to drive, 

But miss all the green space that keeps me alive. 

Mum and Dad still live here now, 

And sweat still pours down from Dad's brow.

He seems to fear the day he'll rest

As if it will feel second best;

Work to him is pride you see,

Tending, of use, great worker-bee 'ee. 



2023 and still the classes divide, 

The bigger the place see, the more room to hide;

Behind the acres of exotic blooms,

In cavernous rarely-swept, bill-soaring rooms, 

Where huntsmen quaffed port from old crystal decanters, 

Held up on their silverware, by colloquial grafters, 

Next-geners now echo throughout their grand walls, 

Running rings round their parents as they race through the halls. 

I hope that they too get to laugh and to play, 

As we all did growing up here, way back in the day, 

Not find their estate finances are in too great a state, 

A burden beholden on their handed plate. 



A wage is a wage at the end of the week,

But what price do we pay if we don't really speak? 

Cross boundaries, care, no need now to be meek, 

We're in different boats but they all tend to leak! 

We get but one life and we all try to live it, 

Observing or serving, it's a gift if you give it. 



A Wensley 

10.01.2023

Layer upon layer,

We are but human strata,

Gradually wearing away the stories of our past.



Yes, you may crumble with the relentless tide, 

But in that earth-shattering,

Earthquake moment so long ago now, 

You held your own! 

Your strata are there for all to see,

You are truth, solidified forever.



Proof that beneath every grass-topped clifftop,

(Underneath your superfluous clothes), 

There's depth, there's colour,

There's a story to be told,

Each layer a life!

 

A time once lived,

Is never forgotten.



At these cliff-edges in life,

Time protrudes through the earth

Like an uprising,

Demonstrating the power within us all - 

To show our inner core!



Bare it with pride in the most violent of weathers,

When you feel most battered by the waves, 

For exposed, you're at your most beautiful.

For exposed, you live out your truth.



A Wensley
2022
Inspired by East Quantoxhead

Inbetween

The love-lorn leaf-littered forest-floor

Of auburn-Autumn

And the glass-bottle-green-moss-maze of wizzened trees,

I walk, together, yet unseen... 

Contents of a sensible head displaced by dreams... 

A mortal-mystic conjures a scene... 



Surreal serpents stretch, uncoil... 

From ivy-clad Gandalf staffs

Ghost-grey mists, entangle, goad me... 

Fears, in the form of fairies, take flight, 

As stags descend my steep surrounds;

The Lady holds me in her flowing embrace, 

Finds my whisper, strokes my face. 



Combes caress my aching heart

Inbetween is where I start. 



A Wensley

28.11.2023

Inspired by a walk through Bincombe and Lady Combe

My life sails on an ebb and flow sea,

Sometimes calm,

Sometimes tossed by the most turbulent, 

Yet subconscious, invisible of waves;

Triggers, like lightning

Strike me, 

Forcing me onto the

Jagged rocks of trauma, 

Which rise like daggers beneath the surface,

Waiting to cut me down

And silt my bow in depression's leech-like mud. 



In the highest of tides, 

Great white caps of emotion

Bear down on my weather-beaten hull, 

Crushing my deck-strong spirit, 

Eroding the very fabric of my being,

Leaving me scarred, and drowning - 

In a storm of my own mind's creation. 



But, in the midst of all this impenetrable darkness

I see a light.

Your light.



You give me your light,

And with it your love. 

A beacon, 

With which to guide 

My soul-wrecked vessel home; 

Your quay-arms-embrace, a sanctuary

In which to drop anchor, to rest. 



Later, then, 

All ship-shape and Bristol-fashion, 

You propel me onwards,

To more mindful shores - 

Into a future, 

Where long-sought-after, far-off adventures

Appear closer, 

On broader, brighter, fog-free horizons.



You are my lighthouse keeper, 

And with your light

I shine. 



A Wensley

This version 5.03.2023

Inspired by C. H.