About the poem ‘The Good Shepherd’ is from Carrying Fire, and is one of a number of poems written for my maternal grandfather. As a boy, he had been a shepherd in the Lake District around the end of the 19th century, and in later life would often refer to snippets of the Lake Poets, his beloved Robert Burns, folklore and his own life – often with rather indistinct boundaries in between! When, much later, I first read William Langland’s monumental 14th century poem, Piers Plowman, the central character came to my mind’s eye in the form of my grandfather as I remember him – gaunt, somewhat distant in aspect, but actually very warm and full of arcane knowledge. ‘The Good Shepherd’ uses the traditional counting system to punctuate a collage of memories and impressions which, whilst as oblique and elusive as he sometimes seemed to be himself, embody the fire which he carried to me. The Good Shepherd For George Lowden yan, tyan, tethera: out on the hills blown
to the mills with the race of the rush
of the Force of the fingers
that would draw the child here is the wringing of the wrestling strength
gripping the wool and the sweating flesh
tearing the cloth seizing the silver
watch that tells no time methera, pimp: from the fruit to the fire to the rough
music squeezed from the sinews
of the song of the hunt
from Burns from the Lakes
from the tell-tale light in the hospital night
to the leaf-mould loam the dickie-birds' rest
tapping the pipe stamping cramp
hush hush sethera, lethera, hovera: fellside shift to meerschaum glow
knowing the secret names red
clouds of morning promise snow
draw the child in charcoal ragged jacket roaming gaunt
clipped grass and whitewashed lines
in habit of hermit unholy of works
rocking backward sunk in sleep dovera, dick: dreamed a dream a wonder it seemed
a field of folk with tower and ditch
all held between at the foot of the stair
he is there again
calling calling yan, tan, tethera: hush hush Oz Hardwick |
