h/edge
kin’d & kin’d
this side there is a
hollowed-open branch with a leaf-nest,
curve of the hollow chalked with lichen
and whorled into a nacreous gall. the ivy
strongs its dark green hearts, roots hug
grafting on to this low maple, cleaving as if
invited. the maple bark is split-cracked,
rotting from without - thorn-breasts
on the grey-green stalk, on the water-snaked
old stalks, and the ivy everywhere
Letters through the hedge
16 hedges at White House Farm, Great Glemham
this side
prick bottom sit
look out hide camouflage canopy
turn look
browned leaves cuddle over broken stick
tiny greens each holed with hunger-eater
brown big leaf with oval penny imprint
ivy holds court and holds fallen leaf
under the hedge edge
spider or throb-beetle on paper
dropped from above
ant climbs up and over spider-like
both stop
move-touch
beetle rampages
spider calculates and swerves
takes its time
a petticoat over capes the bone branches
in the air underneath is hedge world
spore-cup luminant tree’s- love
burnish yolk letter
form-unform repletion
weather jewel encaser
after-fire-glass-staining-unleafing-leaf
dangle-globe
beak-mouth thorn-leaves for kiss-dead pineapples
meteor-compost
serration
green spine dresses
unknown private
Gifts of the hedge
offered to each other
almost thumb-length a system of coils
whorls spirals life contained
in juicy stems an embryonic fern
water pushing through holding itself
holding ready for holding
the great and continuous spring
also the large looped frond
a framed red berry in the hawthorn hedge
against the sound of rain
a tube of flesh-pink corrugated plastic
hosts a snail and a few dried grasses
its fibonacci shell unfurls quickly
the stretchmarks green-yellow on brown
sweeping across and down
camouflage-zigzags
and the markings of the tube
are waves and groves
I
II
the stem spans these two pages in length
strong red-green one leaf chewed and burnt
but at the stem-leaf joint a four-petal
creamy flower-cluster fifteen buds
ready to burst each concealing
those petals and four stamens tipped
with a seed below a healthy oval leaf
and two horned growings-in-waiting
III
IV
this quiet grove of leaf-time
surrendered cracked drivelled bollused
earth veins seamed and stuck
seedpods dark as seawaves
beads on an old stick
pink green or dead
face out the speaking hear
the lost chirps
hedge mourning
dating the hedge II
dating the hedge I
there was a hedge hut hovering on stilts
facing the inline of the hedge, it could see
and touch the bush and scrub
blue or great tit twit-flying outwards, above
along, away, caw-drop of crow or raven
six sheep with one shadow black graze-munching
in the mist field 6 steps up 8 molehills
bootprints on the platform in front of the door
heart-welcome
thank you
h/edge
kin’d & kin’d
Kay Syrad
Clare Whistler
h/edge online created for The Alde Valley Spring Festival
April 25th - May 24th 2020
www.aldevalleyspringfestival.co.uk
We are most grateful to Jason Gathorne-Hardy for providing the residency in November 2019
at White House Farm, Great Glenham in Suffolk that enabled us to write h/edge.
First published in 2020 by Elephant Press
Forge Lodge, Ashburnham
Battle, East Sussex TN33 9PH
Copyright remains with individual poets
All rights reserved
© 2020 Elephant Press
All rights reserved
Designed by Raphael Whittle
at once
your yellows
greenings holding on
your shoot-red stems
the unknowns
already . a bird
strong wings
—quiet now
enter by the webwork
keeping in
and out
hold for a moment
hold
you
dear petticoat-over-skirt-leaf
There is a wind rushing from the open-trees
but not in here; quieting -here
in the criss-cross wooding stem world;
no clear view, no start or end, only evolution,
up-down, across, not even a weaving -
only an equitable
this-and-this-and-this
seaswim of fallenness
scup brown mustard brown
copper brown
swag inside
fall outside
and no clear view
in the quieting-here criss-cross
wooding-stem world
no start or end
spatter rustle underbough goldening
this upward reachery
away-reaching stem
carrying still-bright greens
greetleaf! from here
sea- swim of fallenness
ground mattressed in
gold, gray, redbrown, pink tip
super green, dull brown, brown
swag-spilling inside
outside muddle floor
stickthin broken tipped smooth limbed
thick nettle stem carries still bright greens
grow upward reaches
leaf dot rice spatter
rustle-move against pink sky
thousand streams flighter
endleaf-boating
scribble-pricking
hat-top capclusters some gone
wisp(whisper)fountain
scaled-turtleface edge-out forms
heart-fern symmetries
tree’s lip
dropline bead
de-tachment
cream curvings green sourced
choreograph berry berry unberry
flickerdry hedge hair
pair-podding thistle-hue
blood cocoon
water-twist scatterveins
purple courtier diadem
offering
fly-drop umbrella
pride-green leaf-facing
holy-web-holder
swallow-wing thorns spread
in a symmetrical open-winged beauty
other prickers gnarl their way out
like broken vertebrae alone or kinked
it is a dried life hollowed out stem
reaching to bell-poppets of empty balls spheres
criss-crushed into soft rust
all barrened used
dried and light
by the swallow tipthorn
the leaves are trefoiling -
in trinities they leave the spine green
cover themselves in the marking of blood
some drop spots some smears
stories of leaf cave memorials
it is like infiltration wormerings of
mould creature weather
vegetal blood
thank you for the gift
a cluster of globes whole worlds
springing open a chorus of chirp mouths
bursting with breath symphony
loud voices in globe choir
democratic and outwardly centre interval
all voices out sing shout
each mouth glimpsed into leads
to a dark centre through air shingle water
to dark earth to darkness
where knowledge-myth cooks
the stem furry in white carries leafsprout
and graceful arcs
it’s the globesongs that reverberate
vegetal blood
flicker antennae vibrate to each word
pencil marking into almost fringe
upturned arms holding measurements
then shaking them air-free
thin thread bones hold moisty bit-leaves
long slender nails that have seen better times
shrivelled mottled rot-holed
mud painted powder mildew dustings
colour leach-green to dull on one antennae
red muck gelatilizes as if slimed
the meat enclosed blood-ready protection
danger-jelly attacker or saviour
this one is hip-height old reed torn
at the pink-woody root
splits two thirds of the way into leaf and stem
for fruit two pod-heads growing
oblong from the stem’s knuckle
and a seed like an apple- or pear-pip
nestles in a swivelled leaf-blade
wet bamboo strength yet wetted to death
as for life
it had its occupants dislodged on travel
but remnants hover-cling
and one woodlouse trams around no two
finding new cavings to meld into
they become insider wood peeled inside
skin fired lumped rock-rubbed
parts look like excavations
archaeologised from before time
the mudded outline of hooves
from myth creatures
another woodlouse climbs through the window
in a panic shuffles again
the depths of exploration
retreat to living legs hop-stretching
in multitudes their tiny land turnover world
one woodlouse cling-terrors
sudden stop
found out on multi-planted surface
green bushed hills and trollops
a signal flag calling help
each woodlouse life in mid air
silence
perhaps our changing is
seasonal
silence
sometimes stripped down
bare-boned
open to weather
moments of burst
green with growth
slow maturity
when we are this age
let go
let go echo
shed echo
shred
shed echo
lots in common
even our favourite
colour is mustard green
do I come here often?
maybe you are
more stick in the mud,
attached to your homeland?
yes, I can understand
picking up roots
and leaving
brings up all sorts of
questions
how long does
one have to live
here for it to
be home-
I wonder if we
are always growing
if we stay in the same place
silence
perhaps our changing is
seasonal
silence
I love you at once
your bursting-out yellows
the greenings that are holding on
I admire your shoot-red stems
and your unknowns
(I know you already have a bird
or two to love I heard
their strong wings)
and you said to me ‘quiet now
and you can enter by a webwork
of paths for keeping in
and keeping out
I can hold you for a moment
but we are horizontal
we cannot love the verticals
hawthorn hazel hornbeam holly
woodwart woundwart
wartwood wartwound
woundwood
woodwood
plash pleach plash pleach
reaves lynchets reaves lynchets
hawthorn black thorn field maple spindle
haga hecq hege heg heg hag hedge
A small press
