The earth of the Fens
more purple than brown
raped yellow in April
with blizzards of blackthorn
and silver birch woods
scarred to the bone
Across flat lands
the gaze is free to wander
topped by skies
reaching in for a closer look
ii
stirring the once dormant landscape
like colour mixing paint, fleet visions
of Spring and monochrome the lexicon
that nets elusive first impressions
lines seen from a train window
rattled to a plain and honest rhythm
jottings in a purple book of prose
dormant; revisited now without revision
only the poet knows to shoot in colour
without surfeit of sincerity
© Laura Granby 2015
Jottings from an April train journey, re-discovered in time for Poetry Pantry .
This is very good.
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What does that mean exactly 🙂
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I see now 🙂 When I looked in the comment tab it was just a bunch of punctuation. Keep up the great writing!
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flushed with your praise – thank you!
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Ha. the last lines are pretty cool, and made me smile as I feel a bit of snark when I read them. Lol. I love to ride the train. They go so fast these days the world kinda blurs around you up close but when you look far you can take it in. I will be the one looking out the window – or finding all the interesting characters to talk with. Lol.
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train journeys throw up interest in and outside the carriage
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X
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A beautiful platter of colours 🙂
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not too purple I hope!
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I love this journey…like following the tracks of how these words came to be..
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you have understood the poem in one! thank you
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Train journeys give you taste for places that you can see fleetingly that so attractive yet you probably never visit. When you reach your destination you think why didn’t I stop back there?
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ah but we know those places belong to other lives
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I like this rhythmic beauty of Nature through the window of a carriage…
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thank you Sumana – the rhythm of nature matches the rhyme of train lines 😉
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Across flat lands
the gaze is free to wander
topped by skies
reaching in for a closer look
Beautiful lines 🙂
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appreciate your appreciation Sanaa- some lines come easily – others struggle into type – these rushed in as the train rushed onward
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On train journeys one’s eyes can always freely wander as one travels rhythmically along the tracks.
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especially across the fens Mary
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The colors outside a trainwindow can be colored if we want to.. Though here it’s mostly woods when we go north…
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before our North there is the purple earth of Cambridgeshire
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Your writing is so visually beautiful……I love the blizzards of blackthorn!!!!!
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your words have gone to my head – thank you Sherry!
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Amen to that. I’ve been train-riding along the mighty Hudson River which adds another line and lots of seasonal variation.
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I like train travel precisely for the ever changing sequences of scenes – none have bettered the train poem though than Larkin’s Whitsun Weddings:
:”The river’s level drifting breadth began,
Where sky and Lincolnshire and water meet.”
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fine evocation of train and landscape, Laura.
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is fens Norfolk?
One day …
raped yellow in April
– I loathe both the mustardy colour, and eating ‘oil of rape’
but it is a vividly apt turn of phrase!
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fens includes Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire where my train wended its way.
Yes I agree about Brassica napus hence the double entendre which I feel the jaundiced acres do to our Spring landscape
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a landscape that’s been crudely ‘shopped
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I felt as if I was along for the ride Laura…well done in word and picture….we don’t have enough opportunity for train travel here…I wish we did as I,loved the views from the train as we whizzed by!
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thank you Donna -rail is often quicker than roads for us in lil ole England – emphasis on the little! p.s. I’m off soon to Derbyshire by train so will be looking for more inspiration
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wow those are absolutely perspective finishing lines
have a beautiful Sunday
much love…
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thank you for your very nice words & sorry for the late reply to your comment but WP fished this out as spam for some unknown reason –
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The journey is always important as it inspires great poems like this.
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better to travel than to arrive 🙂 thank you for this lovely feedback
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I like that ending couplet! 🙂 The poet knows how to tell the tale without being too sincere, or too direct perhaps? enjoyed the poetry 🙂
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yes Vinay – neither too obscure or sincere – hard to get it right
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Lovely jottings, beautiful without revision.
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thank you – they just slithered out Snaky – part i did anyway!
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