Poem of the month: "House martins" by Richard Price18 July 2013
Each month we feature the writing of a celebrated poet. Our July poet is Richard Price.
House martins
Back at the old place, I saw two house martins
high up the gable wall.
None had sought to settle there before,
to spit their muddy puddles out and form a property.
They'd preferred our neighbours' roof:
the protection, the liberty, of ample decoration. The darkness there
always was more generous, a home-maker's salvation -
pretty, but hurricane proof.
As darkness thickens, dusk's exhilaration thins.
Now a further martin flitted in.
Steep to good sense, the three gripped the roughcast.
They settled to survey, confer, to attest
(they're squat little scraps at rest):
from a blue-black sketch-of-a-guess
they solidified to a delegation, a thorough inspectorate of doubt.
No soul was about - I called softly, softly.
Less softly, not quite a shout.
At last my daughter clattered out, in pink trademarked clobber.
She slowed, though, at this conspirator,
his mock-sharp glance. She stopped, she stepped - a careful dance
nearer. Beneath our tired travellers
we both looked up - shared
seeing's hush.
A little later she fetched her phone:
no rush - a flourish, but no chatter. I saw her capture
those soft angular shapes, if just as specks (no flash, no zoom).
The eaves were empty when I visited next, early evening / late afternoon.
The martins, I guess, assessed that shelter's future:
took the measure of tomorrow; or at least, made the attempt.
They'd 'talked' at length. They'd paused; paused. Decided against.
(c) Kerstin Hinze/naturepl.com
Richard Price tells us about his writing.
You have lived for a long time in Scotland, why is that country so rich in environmental writing just now?
There's an important tradition to build on - John Muir the naturalist, say; Alexander Wilson the ornithologist (and radical and poet). And of course Scotland is a place where even in the centre of every city you're not much more than a hour's walk out to the countryside.
Tell us about your collection of poems "Small World"?
"Small World" is one of my more urban collections. Nature is sharing space with humans close up: the house martins, even the Highland orchids that grow near passing places on the tarmac rural roads; and the fox of trackside 'sanctuaries'.
With even more of an environmental focus there is my book "Lucky Day", with lots of poems about birds, including the one which represented Team GB in the Olympics, "Hedge Sparrows".
You are now working in London- do you miss the wild?
Before I came to London, even though I grew up in a relatively rural part of Scotland (the suburban county of Renfrewshire), I hadn't seen a fox, a wren, a buzzard, or a woodpecker -- all of which I have seen in the city (yes, even a buzzard).
"House martins" by Richard Price is taken from his most recent book, "Small World", published by Carcanet.
Do you love birds? Read Esther Woolfson's guest blog, Magpies - the master builders.
© Carcanet
