deepundergroundpoetry.com
Peace Sleeps in Forgotten Lands
You feel it in places nobody has to clean, when the wind rushes like a river through the canopy above, when you dip hot sweating feet into a cool clear river washing the summer from your toes. It's waiting on the grass beside the forgotten canal, it sits on rocks on fells, and mountains, it comes rushing down into the forests. It gallops across plains under pale yellow moons. The wind blows it across the world, across moors, along wild lines of coast, into trees, and over meadows, it flows down rivers thick with weeds, and pops out with the fishes. It is the tease of spring, the first flower brave enough to rise above the frozen mud. The first rabbit brave enough to throw out its wadding and munch at the new sweet leaves. Rook rise on it, above the ground over fields, rising on the gusts of peace. Peace is what it is, lonely and quiet, hiding in the wild bits left alone, in places humans have left alone, in places people have stopped trying to order and organsise. When they stop, trimming it, hacking it, digging it, when they stop with all the lines, when they stop tarmacking it, when they stop scrubbing it, and pruning it, peace returns. It returns to the woods we leave alone. It sits on top of moors to boggy to ramble, along coastlines too rocky and too violent to pass, little patches of peace sleep in forgotten lands. Under rocks and under landslides, when swans drift at dusk, under river bank blossoms, along purple shimmering streams before the night has it’s say. Beside summer bonfires, toasting knees, listening to owls. Peace rises from the dawn and gathers in mist beside a calm sea. The peaceful mud smells fresh. Pine sweetens in the afternoon sun. Peace drifts along the flowers hanging over the wall, past the wild garlic, up the chalk hills. It merges with the swirling pollen of the meadow, beside the oak, in the shadows under the sun, peace is there. It munches barbwire, rusts it, and pulls it down under the mud away from soft feet. It cracks roads, it cracks paths, it topples walls, and levels stone. It waits vigilant, waiting for the people to forget to hack it back, then it rises and breaks the fetters humans built. It takes back the land for the wild. You feel it when you stop talking, stop walking, stop thinking about the mundane rubbish whirling round your head. And it rushes back to you, the wonder of the world you felt as a child, it’s not as intense, but it’s there, the fleeting breath of contentment to be alive.
Happiness runs off the lead
In the warm noon air
After the frozen night
The tease of spring
Spreads across the woods
Spring’s first flower
Meek yellow petals
Brave enough to rise
From the thawing leafy mud
Caught the eye of the sun
Published 9th Feb 2023
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likes 5
reading list entries 3
comments 6
reads 352
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The author encourages honest critique.
9th Feb 2023 6:41pm
10th Feb 2023 7:18pm
It is, places I have visited in the world and in my dreams.
regards
James
regards
James
9th Feb 2023 7:35pm
I love the gentle unfolding of natural images and the presence within the whole, which is aware and full of emotion. I like the formatting a lot too, how it unfurls into stanza at the end with great use of caesura to create pause. This is great work.
10th Feb 2023 7:23pm
Thank you,
The poem came first. The prose was inspired by an idea suggested by Indreamz.
I keep digging for the grand novel.
a dream away.
Regards
James
The poem came first. The prose was inspired by an idea suggested by Indreamz.
I keep digging for the grand novel.
a dream away.
Regards
James
22nd Apr 2023 4:52pm
The audio lends terrific dimensions of emotional presence. Your work is meaningful to me.
23rd Apr 2023 11:32am
Thank you for coming back to this piece.
I am happy with the way this turned out. It was Indreamz that put the idea in my mind.
It is something we all must feel. And it cannot be bought and sold. a universal feeling. a feeling of peace so rare in this world. And to know that it is out there somewhere.
Your piece "Absolem, the Caterpillar" was gripping.
Regards
James
I am happy with the way this turned out. It was Indreamz that put the idea in my mind.
It is something we all must feel. And it cannot be bought and sold. a universal feeling. a feeling of peace so rare in this world. And to know that it is out there somewhere.
Your piece "Absolem, the Caterpillar" was gripping.
Regards
James
