Last week, Margaret Mawston passed away at the age of 80. She was a well liked figure in the North Yorkshire village
of Gt. Ayton, former sectretary and long standing member of the local branch of the Worksers' Educational Association and a village poet. Margaret had attended my Creative Writing classes in Guisborough in 1988 and we punblished her in Outlet Magazine and in the Write Around Festival Anthologies. Margaret then joined the Phoenix Poetry Group in Middlesborough and went on to get involved as the Cleveland writing movement developed, being published by Middlesbrough based Mudfog Press with severla later self published pamphlets.
Margaret wrote about nature and environmental issues both infused with her love and observations of nature and her scienticific background - she was a chemist at ICI for a long while and versed in many languages, including Grrek and Russian.
I produced a little booklet of her work for the Wake, and here are the poems, some we published in Outelt and Write Around and others she submitted for a more recent magazine I was involved with alongside some sent to me by Carol Morgan.
A ‘Christmas’ Carol, with a new,
Environment-related Message
Good King Wenceslas looked out
On the feast of Stephen,
England’s prairies met his gaze –
Hedges bull-dozed even:
Nest-sires, cover, food-chains lost –
Birds had left for ever;
Fertilizers drain from fields and
Algal blooms taint river.
‘Hither, page, and stand by me;
If thou knowest it, teach us –
Why this dearth of mobile life,
Worms, mice, feathered creatures?’
‘Toxins lace the soil all round –
Aimed to guard the crops, but
Pesticidal residues
Ensure that all life stops.’
‘Bring me comfort, better news –
Are waters better treated?’
‘No, Sire, rivers are all defiled,
Oxygen depleted,
Fouled by sewage, factory wastes –
Fish asphyxiated;
Toxins take their toll as well –
Fish contaminated.
Sire, the atmosphere is worse:
Chimneys belching, smoking,
Acid fumes return in rain –
Old folk, children choking.
Every citizen’s motor-car
Brings its evil share; and
Halogenated hydrocarbons
Injure the ozone layer . . .
Ultra-violet in excess starts
Cancer of the skin;
Radioactive fallout may
Invade further in.
Nuclear energy uncontrolled, with
Leakage, spells foreboding –
Local evil – but world-wide with
Reactor exploding.
Unforeseen these ills arise
From thoughtless, careless deed;
Evils further come about
From our wicked greed;
Forests hacked down, not replaced –
Soil is washed away, and
CO2 accumulates –
Greenhouse state holds sway.
Elephants are killed for tusks,
Rhinos for their horn.
Plunders man his planet from
Iniquity inborn:
Earth is ransacked, world is robbed,
Environment is ravaged,
Wasted, poisoned – Guilty Man
Must repair the damage.’
By Margaret Mawston
Aware And Alert, Part 3: Places in a Miscellany, page 26
Cockerel Key
A distant cockerel crows.
Subconsciously I hear.
My garden chores go on.
Plugged-in I am to work.
But mind’s straying far away,
East European village claimed –
A Magyar hamlet…geese in flocks…
Quite soon returned…amazed…
Hands occupied with plants.
Faint cockerel crows again…
I’m Balkans-bound – on Bosnian hills
Or steep Greek village street stone-stepped,
Stone slabs on roof, mid mountains hid…
My row of plants is done;
The clank of tools now yanks
Me westward home from dreams:
I wakeful wonder why
Mind wanders absentee
From work repeatedly
To Bosnian valley, Grecian isle…
Cock crows now muffled, far…
But mental pounce now grabs the core,
Collects and threads the exotic beads –
Locales all linked by air that’s filled
With farmyard cock’s still vivid calls –
Familiar there but here now rare.
By Margaret Mawston, from Aware And Alert,
Viewpoints Changing
Reviewed in age, our life is seen with changing shapes
As changing viewpoints, recognised, reveal new scenes.
So, travelling by train to school, surprised I saw
An ash tree, elm or oak rotate, new shapes to show
My eager eyes – the flatness false – with tang to teach
My quickening mind to grasp the three-dimensional truth.
Examine all that comes to mind. Both good and bad appear,
A mélange spins and twirls of downbeat gloom and upbeat cheer,
Our earlier able selves replaced by straw, our tools now blunt;
The light has waned and clouds crowd round, soon twilight too is quenched.
To walk the heights, push on through gale, explore the wilderness
Will soon not be an option free for crumbling folk like us,
Contentment with our lot’s the job, so face the other way!
Displace the gloom and celebrate a multi-coloured day!
The world has all its beauty still: just take a look around –
The seasons’ changing loveliness; the natural world abounds
In varying shapes and sounds and patterns: mammal, bird and moth
And fresh spring growth and long-lived trees and tinkling water’s froth.
Now flowers open, give out perfume, bees hum, wings flash by
And small forms flutter, twitter, sing and music fill the sky.
With fewer tasks, we’ve time to bask in all that’s given us free.
Let joy and pleasure in full measure hold down misery.
By Margaret Mawston, from Aware And Alert,
Part 2: Sandwich, Serious With Fun Filling, page 50
Garden Warfare
Cut-throat combat in my garden plagues my plants,
Harsh gales and rain-spikes slice my seedlings – what is left
When foul black oozy beasts have bitten off the best,
Their cousins in protective armour viciously attack
Even well-grown plants, from delicate lettuce to brawny broad beans,
And cloaked, and hidden from view they think, they dare to climb
And scramble four feet, more, up succulent juicy stems,
With rasping mouth-parts grip and suck the youngest sappy shoots,
They send their sothers and bristers – (hermaphrodite this tribe) –
To scale the house-wall to scout for finest crops
(Or – what’s the game? My bricks have no green film to graze)
And leave their nauseous shiny trails of slime.
I’ve allies who will do my dirty work –
They spear those carapaced molluscan pests
And bash their brains out on the hard stone steps;
- And benefit, with slimy feed their rich reward.
Yet other avian friends may forage midst the leaves and soil,
Or swoop on a crawler ascending stalks aloft,
Crunch up, destroy, consume the grub or insect menace.
Even my friendly robin, tolerant of nearby humans,
Watching my soil-delving movements closely, jumps
For a cruel, easy slaughter – a turned-up worm.
(I forgive him this gaff; but earthworms should be spared)
Among the ranks of raspberries, soldiers standing straight,
The wicked willow-herbs invade en masse:
They choke the rightful residents, aim to evict;
And weave themselves round raspberry roots, for theft of soil-sunk food.
Convolvulus uses the furthest hedge as a climbing frame;
It winds a stranglehold round every vertical stem,
Tops out with a blanket of green to smother its host,
Flaunting its flowers in a virginal show of disdain.
It needs the mobilisation of my own nastiest moods
To unbridled violence to tear down the throttling bonds.
Belligerent bramble in the tortured hawthorn weft
May curry favour with tasty juicy fruits as gifts
But, prompted by warlike stance of established hedge,
Will readily rip my flesh with prickles, egged on by the thorns.
They bid their scions lie in wait likewise among my herbs;
These sharp-barbed shootlets claim the space of parents’ feet,
Insist this soil is theirs: they pierce and cut my working hands.
Then climbing rats with furry tails intrude from thirty feet away.
They strike from base beyond two boundary lines,
Assault my garth in thieving raids and, jumping at a fence,
Ignore protective nets I’ve stretched over ripening fruit:
By their violent kicks, the reticulate barrier’s badly torn.
I saw a sparrow-hawk pounce on a hedge-hidden nest; the nestlings’ cries
Brought full-grown birds in hordes; amid crescendo noise
The adults fought the villain off with beaks and talons.
Fences too, defenders surely of my garden’s arena,
Stab me in the back by harnessing wilful wind,
May hurl themselves across my green and living world,
Destroy whole years of growth in one onslaught.
And something nasty roams my terrain when it’s dark,
Snatches chunks to leave large notches in my brown cat’s ears,
What brutish spiteful demon so could spoil his looks!
So come on, Bristles, before you settle to hibernating sleep,
Search out the savage malevolent devils still a threat,
Make corpses of them, end their evil lives!
Big spiders too, come lay your traps, come catch those lying forms
That lay their eggs, that eat my crops, that taint my favoured plants,
Come, catch them, gobble, rid me of these troublesome brutes!
By Margaret Mawston, from Aware And Alert,
Part 2: Sandwich, Serious With Fun Filling, page 40.
Best Time of Day
The early morning hours are those I prize,
Before the world’s awake, when all is fresh
Washed clean from dull and tasteless yesterday,
By dark hours’ dew erased – slate blank again.
By rest perfused, the memory’s cleared of gloom,
A sleep-conferred amnesia frees the mind.
When new light scours the darkness from the soil,
Our world is different: evening shadows lost,
Replaced by shine dispensed by light reversed;
So – rigg and furrow stripes, with light-side switched;
And windows, rooms surprised by grant of light
Which all those people miss, who later rise,
The unusual light supplants stale day-used dregs
Full-charged with piled-up sorrows, mischief, woe.
Then, watched with hope, the sun itself will rise,
A slow sky-rocket aimed at mid-day height
Or, viewing its forecast frozen field of work,
It totters grounded, along the horizon rolls,
Just slowly gaining strength to lift itself.
In summer it leads the field, ahead of us all,
In winter appearing late - awaited long.
I squeeze day’s first sweet drops, while friends sleep on.
I float on morning’s uplift - powered and sparked
Blaze up, - for time without limit is offered free,
The goad of time’s compulsion dropped, withdrawn.
The mind free-wheels, released from rules; released
Are feelings from inhibition; and naked thought
With lubricated language comes clothed in words.
By Margaret Mawston, from Aware And Alert,
Waiting
Silently resting, the village lies waiting
And still, after storm in an early morn calm.
Sunshine-bather brick-work basks in this blessing;
Weathered dull ochre, the roofs soak it up;
And from gutter to ridge every sequence of tiling
Is waiting . . . for waking of folk? . . . or for winter?
For changes of autumn approach, herald tremor;
But late summer sunshafts seem portending peace.
While the still resting roofs now redden warmly in sunlight,
Their late-lying occupants drowse in the drifts of their dreams,
Cossetted yet in their blankets – as roof tile and brick wall
Nestle still likewise in close-gathered shawl of green leaves.
A breeze has arisen, will waken the somnolent homesteads’
The waiting is ceasing, each household is waking – to what?
While the house-martins busily pass their last days here, the people
Now wake to the last fling of summer – free Monday, sun-bright!
By Margaret Mawston
North West Greece
To Northern Pindos I will go –
Stout mountain boots snug ankle, toe.
Astraka calls, Gamila too,
And Smolikas gives back the view –
Gamila’s saw-edge, pink at dawn;
Crag-foot A-?-os stream is borne
Past K?nitsa, Albania-bound,
Its link with Voidomatis found –
That’s Vikos Gorge’s icy spring
Where bathers gasp and rock-walls ring.
To Astraka hut from Papingo
And on South East to Tsepélovo –
Zag?ri’s hidden grey-stone villages
Delight the eye, like its ancient bridges.
I’ll be welcomed there by all I meet
In North West Greece, off the tourist beat.
By Margaret Mawston, from Aware And Alert
Part 3: Places in a Miscellany, page 31
Light Our Darkness
Black skeletons of trees and roofs,
A single early eastern beam:
Sun slits the mist, to slice downpouring rain -
A shaft that breaks the block of black-walled sky,
Received, restores a summer blaze to autumn’s faded leaves.
Enlivens old stone houses’ golden lichen crusts;
A jet of light imprisoned, - escaped, -
Rekindles burnt-out cinders’ glow;
A force from curtains emergent, power transmits
Transmuting threat to hope in the ambient black;
Light burst from darkness there,
Here darkness yields to light;
A moment’s promise of ultimate evergreen
In the eternal grey of the ephemeral;
And I at the centre, between good and evil,
Conscious of this unforgettable, perhaps unrepeatable instant,
See, in the flash of disclosure, a revelation
Of truth, of the options before us.
Margaret Mawston
January / Spring
The last days of January still are to come -
Ten days more but spring is arriving.
Though daylight’s still short and it’s not over warm,
Spring plants in the garden are thriving.
Crocuses, golden, still unopened ovals,
Stand up near the edge of the lawn.
For days now a thrush has been singing up high,
The tree though still leafless, forlorn.
Dormancy’s dominant widely : small birds
Search bare branches for aught to devour;
But on sun-flavoured soil, in it’s rosette of green
There’s a pale yellow primrose in flower.
Margaret Mawston
NOVEMBER CALM
I walked where autumn’s rarity held sway -
That bliss emerged from gale, fog, frost and rain;
Soft sunshine stilly soaking passive fields.
The calm that filled the place passed into me.
Long simple lines of moorland ‘gainst the sky
Quelled inner turbulence like oil on heavy sea;
A lakeside image roused itself in mind -
Smooth surface spreading stress-relieving balm.
Margaret Mawston.
Bird Business
Rooks rove westward, - dusk decision;
Drove on drove, high twilight trek;
Thirties, fifties, wings slow-flapping:
Training flights for this year’s young -
routes to learn, perhaps.
Dove perched, breast arched pink,
Poised as a finial on pink-tiled roof,
Neck arched, counter-curved, - seeking mate:
He being added, plumed pink too,
the pair now purposefully depart.
Family of five fine mistle-thrushes
Invaded the crown of the rowan tree
Feeding furiously; greedily feeding
In minutes had stripped the tree of its fruit
- ensuring dispersal of seeds.
Arcs of flights weave like wool,
Skeins of bird-track lace the sky,
Twitter-chatter fills the near-space:
Bird-life busy—planned performance
with patterns prints the air.
Margaret Mawston
The following poem is republished from Cleveland’s Poetry magazine Outlet
April 1990 and is untitled …..
This pastel and charcoal evening arrests
My attention,
My awareness is held to it as to a magnet.
A sensation of wonder and awe creeps
Through my being and I would, were I able,
To perpetuate it in paint.
Indescribable in simple words is
The sight before me,
But insistent is its appeal to be registered.
It’s persistence will surely be short -
I must drink while there is time
Of this precious ethereal fluid distilled
From the sun now sunk from the sky.
Already the vision
Slithers out of my grasp, and slight is
The seepage that shows where the stream still
Slides beyond the Horizon.
Blacker now against fading light
The violent and velvet shadows and
The strange blue hue
Of the grass: unique is the evening;
- yet here is this bus-load of people
Absorbed in their sordid selves.
Acquainted with The Night
Reprinted from Outlet March 1991.
Soft-bodied, frail-winged moths fly out
When daylight dims, - bats after them.
Night need not end it: - trace of light
When honeysuckle’s perfume’s found
And moths work on, bats scoop them still -
both beasts acquainted with the night.
Wee rodents, daylight sleepers, scared
Of daytime foes, Man’s noisy world,
Creep out in darkness, deed and fight
And mate, scarce rustling fallen leaves.
The quiet, the darkness suits their needs
- All acquainted with the night.
The dark does not disguise them though -
Rats, mice and such small furry forms
Yield feast for feathered ones on wings, -
Keen-sighted, soundless, swift they pounce,
Hooked beak’s quick snatch takes prey, Yes
Owl’s are -
Well acquainted with the night.
While in the fields, on downs and moors,
When winter’s past and season’s mild,
All night they lie and sleep , or stand
And feed and chew, - our friends with hoofs,
Our cattle, goats and horses, sheep,
Content, acquainted with the night.
The green too is tranquil: plants
Sit fixed to spot through night and day,
In daylight busy making food,
In darkness busy still, - they shift
The sugars made, for use and store, -
Through life acquainted with the night
Through town and country nightly stalk
Their prey, - slow creeping, stealthy, hushed
With final flash, - our feline friends:
Mild, sleepy, cuddly brutes by day
In darkness fierce, they spit and fight
And howl, - acquainted with the night.
And human hunters skulk by night,
Set snares and traps, raid banks, knife foes;
Such lawless lads invade the realm
Of other men, to steal their wealth.
The dark’s ideal for burglars, they’re
Alert, acquainted with the night.
But human life for most part needs
The light of day for work and play:
Most people sleep the dark away
Till sky is white and calls; but some
On night-shift sleep the day, then work
Acquainted with the night—awake.
Yet other humans dance and drink
In lighted rooms, escaping night;
While darkness charms some human souls:-
Lovers are blessed and thinkers are clear,
Artists are moved, poets inspired, -
Acquainted with the night’s own peace.
.........................
On Roseberry Topping at Sunjustset
First published in Write Around 1989 Anthology
Flat plates of rock, an island in a twilight lake,
Deep in that sea a thousand feet creep cars
Like phosphorescent worms of the dark depths
And other living creatures, - living lamps…..
Naked to the sky, asprawl we ride our raft,
A lantern at our mast-head hangs the moon;
Vast is this ocean, reefed by mountains round,
Ranges now wild though gentle in sky-lit day,-
The undulating Cleveland moorland verge.
Vivid a rainbow strip of western sky -
Unnoticed diminution of the day-sky shell;
But upward turning, our eyes through green and blue
In ten degrees by solid light are met,
Thence shock-cast floorwards find reflected night
And only between the meeting jaws this streak
Blinding our whale-mouth-dwellers’ unaccustomed sight.
But for the moon’s, our lantern’s westward drift
Drawn in unconscious wish to trail the sun,
These minutes’ clarity could seem to touch eternity
Floating in timeless medium, voyage unsensed.
You speak of Austrian lakes, a childhood scene,
Welling in colour up from mist of years;
I can accompany you, can clearly view
Imagined landscape at Europe’s unroamed roof
Just as this gable-end just now new world unfolds.
Silent upon a peak we view our world,
Our heavy bodies pressed to this crust upthrust,
Curling our wormlike softness around this crystal
Point protruding of earth from her rocky core,
Bearing us up as on altar, a sacrifice to the gods.
Nearer are we at this moment to their estate:
Earth has no power; we float above her sphere.
Far from our island raft and impotent at this hour
Teeming industrial Tees-side, as milky way
Reflected at northern shore of the lake, is manifest.
......................
First published in Write Around Poetry
Anthology 1991
I walk the now familiar curve
Where river Leven flanks the road:
The green pasture penetrates
To village centre, meets those banks.
Low sunshine streams across on me;
The old stone houses quietly stand
Behind, around the village green,
And cluster close again downstream.
I turn to check the hills still rise
Behind, above the building’s bunched;
Assured, I’m satisfied, walk on.
This loved locality fills my being.
And now subconscious cries out ‘Snap’ -
No visual matching in the mind
But echo pulses from the past -
Familiar feelings recognised.
The scene’s now subtly changed—through half
A century suddenly time’s wound back:
A child, I’m wandering freely through
Green London suburb, - trees and fields
Still dominant there—it’s peaceful, quiet -
A village still though spreading fast.
I stop beside the village pond; I wade
Into water, watch for fish; I climb
A tree—for animal pleasure, view from height
For joy in freedom, lordship, solitude.
My feelings smoothly past and present link,
As present satisfaction now restates
That long-past childhood’s consciousness of place.
That love that now this village generates.
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