
LINES COMPOSED WHILST ENTRENCHED IN MY MINDS EYE, ON THE URBAN HILLS IN ISOLATION
This set of work is inspired by the William Wordsworth poem 'Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798'
In this instance, I took the form of his poem and applied it to my own situation whilst in Covid-cough-cough lockdown. It began around the end of March and ended in August.
I rewrote the poem, keeping in the spirit of its core messages; the messages I took from his words anyway. The connection to nature, to the earth and the senses.
Lockdown brought me both closer to nature and my spirit yet also more physically distanced. It engaged thoughts of my past in a way I had not previously recollected. It generated questions and affirmations for my future. It made me present.
The full version of the poem can be found below.
All are varnished acrylic and oil on cotton canvas.


![Part Three: To my Ear [1/2]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/701209_2bc45c3a6b5248cb9fd0040af579c678~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_980,h_982,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/Part%20Three_%20To%20my%20Ear%20%5B1_2%5D.jpg)
![Part Three: To my Ear [2/2]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/701209_f5afbc98ce6b4d05a0af7e0a0560d885~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_980,h_968,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/Part%20Three_%20To%20my%20Ear%20%5B2_2%5D.jpg)

![Part Four: Touch [1/2]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/701209_04e889daa17c43e99ed4f50c142e9b59~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_980,h_995,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/Part%20Four_%20Touch%20%5B1_2%5D.jpg)
![Part 4: Touch [2/2]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/701209_78224674f48448a39459b2b57bd7b009~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_980,h_985,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/Part%204_%20Touch%20%5B2_2%5D.jpg)

LINES COMPOSED WHILST ENTRENCHED IN MY MINDS EYE, ON THE URBAN HILLS IN ISOLATION, 2020
Part One: It Began To Open
The spring, it past; blossom sunk, with depth
Of that long winter! and yet here
Isolated ponds; foaming with fresh paddle
The soft commentary of new eyes.—Once upon a time
Locked up minds beheld their nature
That on empty streets with swaying buds
Dreams could kindle in once tired trails; and linger
The sky flush with birdsong unimpaired
The day alert as it asks to paint dormant cotton
There, virulent oak whose leaves I never did touch
The heart sees further than the head
Passing allotments of indulged earth, green tufts,
Where man is connected, reaping the sown,
Are alight with faces speckled crimson, lost in work.
‘Early fruit and bark. Once gazed at
Weathered huts, how now is such a seat, isolated
Splintered as it is familiar: old homes the new,
Earth toiled to the hatch; hammock tied with ivy
Away am I, without embrace, on the coiled path!
Dined on a takeaway menu, as stomach feels
Of a populace that perched, pitched and plumped,
Or of some dream from a cave, here is my fire
The heart burst with you.
Part Two: I See You Now
Tangerine peeled sunsets
On horizons do rainbows splinter, not known to me
It is a vista to which I was ignorant but kind:
How so, from a door to a door, via four wheels or track
From town to city, and realised my heart beat fast,
In the din of work, heavy to mind, salt to a heart,
Longed for a time of rest, find the heart no further test.
From a state of unease at communal pause
Those shards of torn flyers:—littered from walls
Of what would never - but, could - have been: adventure too
As one tantalises unexplored pleasure
How a heart can regret missing morning light,
A seed, evergreen, raw to its roots, loyal to one bulb
To light lit with birdsong. Also sunshine, also rain,
For eyes that look down be them clouds with gifts,
Horse print marks the time; soft earth to print,
In which a journey was no sojourn,
It was no transient moment to pass Go by the whistle
All uncharted waters were mapped,
Passed overhead:—those mythical krakens old news,
Passed like freckles in leaves in autumn,—
Yet, those splinters formed an order
That thud it began to wander about pace
That speed, must it now present a break
To be tape, become the permanent plaster:
Lungs sudden attention to voice and reason
Of listening, that greatest test to ear,
To hear, be silent and still to it all.
Part Three: To my Ear
What if
To listen, be present and awake —
To it all, to myself in a room of yesterday’s trend
Of those lingering arguments; ego hurt over morning tea
Unhelpful, the medicine of the tale,
Here ringing in my mind a bell to no hour—
Tell me, in presence, words that have known me,
Of utopian stillness! thou heard your toll
Tell me how often have I needed you to know me!
And here, with notes of unfinished songs the new normal,
Recommendations peeling like cheap paint,
Twitching to a thought that wasn’t right,
The spruce livens my drink to refresh my mind:
Sitting here in my unit, flush with seasonal colour
Of surrounding canticle, ears so kindly aware
Here rising a smile with the dawn and the sunset
For this normal. And it is my superpower
That I will listen, in the family way, Mother’s ear
I heard summertime lemonade; youth’s summer
I ran over brooks, swung across steams
Of fields beyond suburbia, peeling fields,
Wherever a new style led: my inner child
Smiled at nettles smite and the abducted sole’s dogshite
I heard the laughter I sought. For charms were
[How my days were full of ignorant adventure
But how those days were full of velvet colour]
Abound with opening doors.—I can recount
The boy I was. My fear at what constituted a man
Bugged me like rose buds; my window pain
The slope down my acre and the countless curbs
That game invented with spirit, was to me
Adventure; ephemeral love,
That will forever be coloured in midsummer,
By no administered rain, nor grandparent passing cloud
Unmerited tears for the eyes.—That summer must past
And how I laughed, must I now not fast;
My inner raconteur must seek the new. For, no
I cannot, will not; my soul remains
Alive here: for what, sometimes i do not know,
Constant compensation. Yet my senses refreshed
To inhale the air of the morning, to flow in tune
At one again; conspicuously alert
Frustration at collective response; pride in belonging
The feeling of souls desiring a sole trodden outside
Never to me a worry, I pride on the venture
To breathe in anew.—And yet stared
To that far off peak and eye where I blinked first
Of respect we have not collectively given
Of individual vulnerability and disconnection,
Here is my home yet there is my calling,
And the sea it passes between us;
And the trees that will shed tears before me:
A kindle in the heart, it sparks
An energy in intention, all steps future marked,
And so the waiting goes. Therefore I am in
A chain that grows weaker with each pull
And rust; that determination cannot be denied
I will move on; searching for virgin field
To my ears, and touch,—my heart does connect,
And lungs breathe; to a sun forever reminding
That here you are but pollen to the air
The very feet for which I plant, the gardener,
The home, the creator of my mind, and heart
Of all I know how to now be.
Part Four: Touch
Never alone,
For my skin found its natural calling, acceptance
Of what it needs to not fade before autumn:
Hearing vibrations of a life once knew
Of that street; my favourite vantage spot,
Why, how are you? My voice croaked
To a spirit unfamiliar, it engaged
My home is but a library of memory in dust
Oh to test its pulse. Yes! It beats strongly
My homework to hold my wrist and smile,
Myself, my heart! and to give love to the cycle
Knowing that forever we move
That time does tock; tick to the recognition,
Through all these weeks of subdued song, to cry
From sand now shaken: the egg timer now turned
My nails require clipping, not to curtail flight
Within me, muscles now engaged to relax
With the promise of untutored sunlight, to wake,
Paranoia and fear, here or was it there,
Never settled but rooted, in a present unploughed
In the facile engagement of yesterday,
It hooks to claw you back, to remain the behaviour
To sing yesteryears song. Thoughts spring
Dancing a fresh path lit by the moon:
And let the collective of empathy never
Be torn like pre lockdown plans: and, tomorrow
When remembrance buds as a leaf falls
Deep into the nerve; upon where my pen
Shall capture the manifestation for those present
My heart captures more than my mind
For all those for whom I was a raconteur; hey, ho,
If isolation, detachment, or viral fear,
Be that with which you split thy bridge to me,
Oh of patience and tender joy will I give breath,
And I love thee! Yes, you as well—
A memory for which I will nurture
My gospel, I will toss it to the wind with eyes in water
Of that time—a hold of a hand
That up here on an urban hill in isolation
I set an intention of adventure; and, to start
I plunge into the sunrise, yesterday went
Noted and learnt and inhaled: heart yearns
Enriched in embrace—my! I have connected
Of holier love. Yet as we look eyelids unfurled
That those days spent within four walls, those walls
In whose liberty curtailed, that canopy cocktail,
And then there it was, I needed to feel
More in touch, in my skin, for the sake of looking up
[and stop]