Plein Air Poems

(Leaf 2) – Looking Back

 

Tim Chamberlain - Merlyn Rock (2001)

When I was young my family would holiday every summer in Cornwall. We even spent a wonderfully warm and cosy Christmas there one year. In many respects I grew up there as much as I did in my hometown on the edge of London. But the first time I went and stayed there on my own was in the summer of 2000, when I was in my early twenties. It was strange to be there on my own. I was only there a couple of days and nights, having travelled down by train from London – a journey of something like five hours. I stayed at a bed & breakfast in one of those grand old Victorian villas not far from the seafront in Penzance. On my first night there I had a couple too many pints at the local pub my family always used to go to in Newlyn. Getting back to the B&B well after closing time, I found the front door closed and thought I’d been locked out, so I rang the doorbell and got the landlord out of bed. He opened the door in his dressing gown and told me the door was only on the latch; all I’d had to do was push it! – The next morning at breakfast I was profusely apologetic.

The main objective of my stay there was to walk the coast path from Penzance to a place where several generations of my family’s ashes are scattered, quite a long way further down the coast. The next day was bright and sunny. I spent most of it trekking up and down the rugged coastal path, zig-zagging in and out of hidden coves, fuelled by bottled water and Fairings biscuits. Taking photos as I went with a 35mm film SLR camera, pausing from time-to-time to jot down haiku and short poems as they came to me. Stopping in the late afternoon to cool my aching feet in the narrow, fast-running streams cascading down from the valleys into steep-sided coves which echoed with the sound of waves rolling in from the Atlantic. It was a wonderful walk, but when I reached my destination – having rewarded myself with an ice-cream topped with clotted cream at the Post Office/General Store in the nearby village, as had always been our family’s tradition – I found being there was oddly forlorn. Not the sort of homecoming I’d expected. Although sunny and warm, the place was furiously wind-blasted. I made my way back overland by road. My feet were really sore by the time I crashed into bed that night.

The following day I walked in the opposite direction, mostly walking barefoot to ease my blisters in the shallow salty seawater of the beach between Penzance and Marazion. I sat dozing on the rocks with a wonderful view of Saint Michael’s Mount, enjoying the sunshine and the sound of seagulls. In the evening, eating fish n chips on the promenade at Penzance. Visiting Newlyn Art Gallery the next day, where I first discovered the work of one of my favourite artists, Kurt Jackson. Sitting on a bench, sketching Mount’s Bay. Then reading Mervyn Peake’s ‘Gormenghast’ on the long train ride home. It was one of the first times I’d travelled on my own. The first time I’d properly tasted both the liberation and freedom of solo-travel, and its more melancholy aspects too.

These were some of the poems which I wrote at that time. They make very evocative reading for me now; memories etched more clearly than photographs perhaps.

Tim Chamberlain - View of Penzance & St Michael's Mount (2000)

 

 

PLEIN AIR POEMS

 

A collection of haiku and short verse written while walking the coastal path near Land’s End, Cornwall (c.2000).

 

kemyel path

 

long pine needles

turned bronze

on the cool earth.

 

 

* * *

 

narrow path

descending to the cove

beneath low boughs of fuchsia.

 

 

* * *

 

low clouds

moving over

the calm sea

 

 

* * *

 

water lapping

over pink rock,

green weed

and anemone

– the sound of barnacles

crackling all around.

 

 

* * *

 

merlyn rock

 

a deep pool of lapis blue,

fringed with salty fronds;

far below the calm rise and fall,

round boulders, stones and sand;

through a crevice in the pink rock

the lapis blue rising and retreating,

groaning like a walrus stirring

in the warm sun.

 

 

* * *

 

sailing boats

on the horizon

 

white triangles

weaving.

 

 

* * *

 

deep boom and

hollow echo –

clear water surging

through the chasm.

 

 

* * *

 

landfall

 

in the silent wake

of the storm –

the mariners’ maids

stand looking out

from the quay.

 

After a painting from the Newlyn School, seen at Newlyn Art Gallery in 1999.

 

* * *

 

driftwood

 

bleached white

and brittle as bone

beneath the bright sun.

 

 

* * *

 

white ghostly mops of hair

bobbing to the surface,

receding to the memories

of the coastline.

 

 

* * *

 

alacrity

 

inside the sea cave

–  wedged,

heavy sheet iron;

lifting brown flakes

to the salty wind

and white foam.