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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781847778178 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Carcanet Press, Limited |
| Publication date: | 04/01/2010 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 96 |
| File size: | 136 KB |
About the Author
Thomas A. Clarke is a poet, a writer, and an artist who runs Cairn, a project space for minimal and conceptual art.
Read an Excerpt
The Hundred Thousand Places
By Thomas A. Clark
Carcanet Press Ltd
Copyright © 2009 Thomas A. ClarkAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84777-817-8
CHAPTER 1
The Hundred Thousand Places
once again
for the first time
morning
a sea mist closing
every distance
cliffs falling away
from the edge of a world
only half accomplished
listen
feel your way out
into what might
wave or rock
take form
you are not sure
there where you hover
over yourself
stay there
as if you were implicated
the lifting of the mist
from the water
the grey wake of a boat
unmoored at dawn
colour
the first
candour
the gorse flower
tenderness
nourished on rock
in a salt wind
primrose
of the islands
opened
by light
first primrose
of the islands
the lapwings
call to you
to confuse you
veering away
they call to you
to confuse you
a wide stretch of sand
you walk out
into space
as to
an appointment
with so much
space around you
intention
drops from you
here is where
forward momentum
runs out in
pure extension
no longer
ahead of yourself
in imagination
nor behind yourself
pushing on
you walk
above yourself
space spreading round you
the sand
bearing your weight
a path through the gold
of bird's foot trefoil
delayed by the pink
of thrift or campion
as it turns
in the long grasses
you are coloured
by events
there where
you lose yourself
brightness
takes your place
sit down on the rocks
impatience exhausted
thyme, thrift and clover
where the space is wide
hours should be wasted
thyme, thrift and clover
thyme, thrift and clover
green islands
on blue seas
blue lochans
on green islands
drifting between
green islands
a red boat
on blue water
eight hundred
acres of heather
for the step
and the stride
on bright days
the world is brittle
the solid rock
is insubstantial
as you tread the deep
accumulations
a snipe cuts
a curve in space
between sea and sky
drifts of bugloss
a blue butterfly
lifting from the lyme grass
cormorant and herring gull
orpine and clover
sorrel and sea kale
redshank and plover
sunshine its climate
openness its aspect
detail its pleasure
the fields are drenched
in lark song
in detail
in dew
knee-deep in flowers
the red bull is lazy
muscle-bound
slightly drunk
as far as you can go
over the machair
there is only surface
it is a plane
of appearance
where nothing
is deferred
lacking depth
you walk on the richly
embroidered ground
the blue butterfly's
moment on the purple
thistle flower
is indolent
idly its hoarded
blue is unfolded
onto difference
then folded again
heard but not seen
the corncrake in the grasses
steps through fragrance
shy of exposure
seeking the shelter
of complexity and fragrance
asphodel, milkwort
eyebright, ling
the lovely particulars
brighter than their names
through crushed water-mint
through particulars you come
to a blue boat moored
beside purple vetch
if you stretch out
in the long grasses
your weight is distributed
over the headland
to rest as lightly
on the crushed grasses
as sky on sea
turning back from the sea
from margins and limits
behind yellow dune and grey dune
beyond the old hay meadows
follow your inclination
a drift of thistledown
the interior quiet
thistledown and bog cotton
a sweet scent
of cattle and wool
the place names
are exclamations
and sighs
not a stranger in the glen
without a rumour on the breeze
not a stray sheep on the hill
without word of it
along back roads
to far dwellings
single track
with pausing places
by vetch and clover
behind a straggle
of honeysuckle
the distances
laid on open
dog rose petals
through mud and manure
to hill farms
dark with neglect
a depth of fragrance
stored in the barn
at leisure a shape
lifts from rock and flaps
out over wastes
a few wing beats
taking it far
stretching inland
blackland and moorland
grassland and acid heath
a dark country
of heather and moor grass
of deer grass and moss
around the ruined
sheep folds and shielings
green islands
of sweet vernal grass
bent grass and fescue
rescue wilderness
a whim
of wind
in dry
whin thorns
a song
of wind
through bare
rib bones
whatever is lifted
by the wind is dropped
again into a calm
slightly ahead of itself
strong hill shapes
presiding over
pastoral slopes
sheep grazing
salmon in pools
of clear water
runnels of water
freshets of water
many voices
grey lichens
resting on branches
as if they had dropped
from the air
brighter than evergreen
fresh shoots on larch branches
their constancy is not
to continue in the same
but to return again
to spring, to morning
freshness and vigour
one song of water
picking up
from another
the slopes
constantly
spilling water
as you climb
it pours
around you
rushing, dashing
leaping to find
its level
stretch out
on the slope
beside water
where it leaps
headlong you resist
the inclination
there you go
but for a counter
weight or inertia
you do as you please
taking your ease
against the slope
the rock in the water
breaking the full
weight of the flow
produces melody
the rock by the water
broken by bracken
tormentil and heather
releases colour
from rock
heather
from astringency
colour
the many strands
of water are tied
in a woven braid
or plait of water
tossed in the early light
taking the slope
you glance back
at a grace or tress
of water and light
as you turn a corner
of the forest path
the face of the mountain
looms up before you
it knocks you back
for a moment
the force of it
straddling the path
you must gather
your wits and go
forward in a new
imposition of scale
as you climb the slope
mountain after mountain
appears on the horizon
flowers of altitude
they were waiting
there for you to come
among them
to look across at them
from your own height
what you feel
you can contain
what you see
you will become
the way is upward
through exhaustion
a scree of resistances
glittering muscovite
or white mica
little silver
sparks of sensation
along an arch
or anticline
the rocks lifted
and folded over
in inverse order
the lone violet
of altitude
finds shelter
scramble up
to the ridge
and look over
from complex
negotiations
to vistas
desolations
you are the first
thing the wind meets
as it whistles up
the side of the mountain
rocks, trees
mountains
solitary persons
swept up
in the wind
slopes of sunlight
slopes of snow
sit together
above the scree
innocent
of incident
on the mountain's shoulder
sit on a rocking boulder
rocking and hugging yourself
as you look out
over the hill shapes
you feel your way
over the hill shapes
your eyes walk
over the slopes
looking at hills
you are free of concern
filled with distances
volumes
where enquiry
hurries on
the hill shapes
take their time
take your time
the rise and the swell
of the hills are yours
their weight and implication
rest and aspiration
the hundred
thousand places
with a stone
and some grasses
the dwellings
in ruins
the stones
given back
all the little knots
of anxiety and tension
slowly unravelling
of affection and disaffection
slowly unravelling
the dried grasses trembling
if you move
lightly
events will start
up from your feet
crossing a moor
you are separate
pushed out from
the curve of the hill
or leaning against it
neither moor nor sky
including a sullen
sky and moor
you are broad
and resilient
butterwort
flower of the moor
purple flower
of emptiness
a basal rosette
of carnivorous leaves
the flower single
on a slender stalk
waiting
in emptiness
not the wisp of a breeze
in the lee of the day
among dapples and sedges
rushes and eddies
your pace slackens by
the loch of delay
a forlorn water
do not speak
your name here
a breath is enough
to fan the ripples
of water that run
deliciously in
around dwarf juniper
in the heat of noon
the cool of a pine wood
is refreshing
for man and deer
the songs of shade
are clear songs
thrilling through
gusts of cold
in the gloom the eye
flies to light
to light on a branch
and pause
among shadows
and half-lights
taking place
in their place
the deer
modest
and gratuitous
in a present
they do not
present to themselves
among trees
shedding
their predicates
let them
be there
in the shadows
let them be
who is it
in the pine wood
neither you
nor me
sheltered
the one who
sought shelter
dissolves
a stone from shade
carried for a mile
cool in the hand
there may be a hill
behind a hill
that will invite the gaze
to linger
grey-green behind grey
in looking you are there
it is all you require
this shape this colour
a steep-sided glen
you go on and on
deeper into green
led by implication
you are not where
you are but there
ahead of the given
in continual revelation
knee-deep in bracken
wade out into green
the displaced waves
of bracken fronds
settling around you
as you go forward
you are drawn
forward
green forms
rise up
in front of you
pouring into the visible
as if from some
invisible source
the colours glow
in and around you
you grasp or discard
relations and forms
what is at hand
supports or projects you
you have a mind to
green and gold
a common idiom
carries through
complex articulations
call it a place
it was not your
intention to bring
all your resources
here but you do
a hanging valley
of ash, wych elm, hazel
willow, birch, oak
dense cover of beech
light shade of ash
wintergreen, ramsons
sweet woodruff
guelder rose
hair moss, bracken
fork moss, oak fern
reindeer moss
under a tree
beside a stream
on top of a rock
habitats, dispositions
stands of pine
glades of bracken
ravines of filmy fern
thickets of bog myrtle
birch sapling curving
slightly twisting
out from the slope
rising and turning
in what might
be called a gesture
if a gesture can be
prolonged indefinitely
a breeze
of small birds
moving through
birch leave
glen of the stones
moss growing over them
trees breaking through them
no path or direction
without plan or intention
you move among stones
to the left, a stone
a stone behind you
beside you a stone
about shoulder height
with moss-covered ledges
ridges and ravines
put your hand
on the hollow rock
place your hollow
hand on the rock
rocks fallen
from high places
keep their composure
you will have to go
all round it
to see it
have to stay
with it
to know it
far down
through green
a drone
of water
a green boat
by a hut
under alders
looking out
the path turns
don't follow it
wait to feel
the lure of it
turning you catch
sight of your own
shadow projected
on green
lured farther
deeper
you are immersed
in green
rising through
leaves and shadows
the imputed
form of the trunk
the attributes
held by
the attribution
the air is cooler
above the stream
that runs through mosses
under the pines
bright slope
of bracken
blue hollow
of bluebells
sit in a debris
of storm damage
thoughtless
in the sunlight
dusty little
butterfly
as if faded
by light
it has taken half a lifetime
to learn to sit in the sun
among primroses and violets
beside a dried adder skin
your back to a broken wall
the grey mare stands
with her back to the rain
tail and mane blown forward
a lean form in a field
facing towards mountain
coming down the hill
you are tall
take it easy
lean back
against the slope
the places
you have been
come with you
you bring experience
to evening air
cattle wade out
into the cool loch margins
among drifts of marsh marigolds
water-mint and speedwell
to stand and bellow
at the setting sun
you will need to know
who you are, to walk
by the solemn lochs
you will have to take on
the volume of a cloud
to move with circumspection
you will need to wear
boots of lead, to walk
by the solemn lochs
in a corner
of a field
unattended
a bonfire
consumes light
by the roadside
a wood
carpeted with wintergreen
wind in the high branches
stillness over moss
before you came here
was there dancing
and are the lugubrious
elders of the wood
pausing
the hill that was bright
is now dark
imperceptibly sensation
glows to emotion
then fades again
there is a faculty
that takes to the moor
and another that brings
you down to the shore
a part of you sheltered
by a gable wall
a part of you open
to the elements
a part of you substantial
and weathered as rock
a part of you mist
dusk and smoke
by an old mooring
a few steps
carved out of rock
go down to water
as if you might
step down into the sea
into another knowledge
wild and cold
far out in the dusk
where qualities mingle
a figure is standing
at the tide's edge
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Hundred Thousand Places by Thomas A. Clark. Copyright © 2009 Thomas A. Clark. Excerpted by permission of Carcanet Press Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,Acknowledgement,
The Hundred Thousand Places,
About the Author,
Copyright,