OTTER SIGHTING - BUT NOT AN OTTER
       

         Eyes strain & grimace against the glare of the sun. Then the
         flypast of magnificence.

         Did you see it ! ? A conversation piece for tourist twitchers -
         humanity drawn together by the brilliance of this minute
         masterpiece, breaching  British reticence.

          A sign of river purity, providing visual adrenalin in a life
         affirming moment.  Its rufus breast and azure back fleet by
         riverbanks, paths & edges, savage hunter & evocatively mild.

         Iconic image of irredescent blues, nature's feathered  faberge,
         uplifts us in a nano second of flight & leaves all enriched with
         a rekindled attachment to the wild.

         Geoff

         OTTER BULLOCKS
         

                                         Photo - Fenella

          A high noon herd of harmonious hues,

          Titian tints of burnt earth mixed with fifty shades of beige.

          Devonian summertime in a scene of pastoral bliss

          Beefy  flanks, loins and steaks meander chromatically in a

          Scene of searing heat.

          Hides and sides of tan, no shadows on their flanks -

          They are the colour of each other's shadow and darker shades
          Of pale,

           No dappling in this linear pasture, following the river path.

           A field of male, multicoloured cattle, bovine glamour of
           Jersey descent -

           A colour chart of mother earth.

           Geoff

         OTTER RAMBLE

        
         Balsam bashing, hogweed hacking, roots and stems lying
         parched, on the path, in the dust -

        Slashed out spaces await replacement spores and seeds, or the
        planner's ideal needs -

        Invasive species -  who are we ?  attack, defend, repel, remove,
        forceout -  "needs must..... "

        Geoff

A prizewinner!

I'm pleased to say this poem - from our noisy Haytor trip - has just won the National Trust Highcross House 'Spirit of Place' competition. Ian

HAYTOR QUARRY 2

After the scamper of dogs has been leashed

and the stone-throwers run out of splash

and the ramblers have repacked their rucksacks with accents and maps

and the mud-stirrers, sheep-scarers, tree-climbers

rock-hoppers, pool-paddlers, newt-namers

ardent historians, arty photographers, adder enthusiasts, sporters of lycra

whistlers and toddlers and spotters of five different species of fern

have gone.

After all this

when the echoes of frantic have died

and skylarking turns to a flicker of feathers

and fish have relearned the routine of patrol

and the water has jigsawed its upside-down mirror

and sunshine has started to steam up the splashes

and only the chaffinches fidget the leaves

and the few quiet sitters sit

and the few quiet sitters sit

the performance begins.

More from Ian and the Otter

BANK OF OTTER

listen to the comb of fingers

in the yard-high buff-dry grass

inhale plume of emerald slipstream weed

wash-lick face of scent-storm

welter muscle-easy trout flick

kilter of a stilted egret

canopy of pigeon thrash

the last poppy wick-head summer red

in twenty-four degrees of fine July

savannah breeze of sea and reed bed

senses meltdown

compound, upside-down,  turn round:

an off-white mirror-flat of clover

one step back from the bank

                                           begin all over…

Otter Valley - Ian

BEES  IN CLOVER

Fur bundle fidgets

in a chrome glitter blur

of fuzz and burrow

and the off-white pale-pink

pinprick forest shudders

under an insistent tongue.

Flit mission unpredictable

to my unbumble eye.

Clover spindles bend

to the sun-heavy hum

bee succession

sex and pollen

frenzy of attention

head to head to head.

A DOOR TO A SECRET GARDEN

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 (opposite Otterton Mill, Devon)

waits a hundred years or more.
It’s a way in wide enough
to roll a barrel through,
only high enough for a dwarf.

Ancient black,

blue-greyed to dust in the sunlight,
older than the stones that frame.
It’s sleeping, shallow breathing
into its tired paint, unthumbed latch.

Shadow spills from a subtle arch

and time-rubbed corbel.
At midday in midsummer
it’s a heifer’s belly sprouting udder.
Under,

a fly pauses then steps and turns

as if to walk a quadrille. It senses
with its feet what lies behind. For us
there’s a knothole where a lock would be;

a voyeur’s glimpse into wildness;

unnatural green, sprays of yellow,
grasses unmanaged.
                                       What a haven
of possibility for human aberration;
fairy types forged in long dead heads.

Graham Burchell