It was a good question, matching a poem whose genesis I understood somewhat
and remembered

Also, the way you posed it didn't make me fear knowing too much about a
process that I fear will leave me with pockets full of dust if I presume
upon it

I have - sort of - resolved to look more carefully - at everything. Years
ago I read a book - from memory, it was the peregrine by j a baker - which
greatly excited me

and i was struck by my subsequent relative success in seeing the red tooth
and claw in action whether it is a sparrowhawk in the suburbs or a kestrel
in penwith

if one looks it is often there

i want to increase that

i recall colin simms saying he feels privileged to live among the animals he
studies and writes about; and he said it unreservedly... i want to learn
from that despite my ignorance, not just animals but everything that's
rolled round in earth's diurnal whatever - I can't remember the line
properly

there is, incidentally, a small section in simms' book on lizards that has
seemed to me a metaphor for _finding poems_

as i recall he speaks of studying lizards to the extent that you _know_
where they will be without thinking about it, you then walk down that path,
reach out and take the creature (into a bag, to be measured and set free)

i don't want to measure them. i'm happy enough to see something (what i am
thinking of is that a lot of the writing one does might be seen, from one
side, to be like that preparation and learning that colin speaks of; and
that as a result sometimes a poem seems to come; but with the preparation
one is ready to react appropriately, making it more likely the poems will
seem to come

i have relatively little time to be out and about, but there's always a lot
going on. in some cases it's a matter of being very quiet and still, which I
try to practice... The quietness means that not only will the nonhuman stay,
but one will also be unflustered enough to see

i recall ambling round a corner to find a buzzard sitting on a hedge by the
red river in penwith

the buzzard was rather cross about my intrusion but i got to see it just by
not making a noise

there are near st ives quite other worlds very near habitation - rosewall
hill is only a few hundred feet high, but few people go up there & one
shares it with clouds and birds of prey; and the Hayle estuary is a huge
stretch of sand at low tide, an extraordinary post industrial wilderness
which is being redeveloped apace - they used the waste from copper smelting
to make bricks to build the piers & it seems the bricks have a life of 150
years or so and the whole thing is disintegrating - the sea's coming back,
the structures are collapsing & the dolphins and birds do their thing
largely alone, untroubled - compare that to the motorboats further up the
coast going out to watch seals!

re _reddish_ I hesitated over that a long time. i can see the colour still
in my memory; and reddish isnt quite it; but to get it _right_ would have
taken other means that I wanted to avoid because I want to keep it simple
and stark... nowt to do with blood!

The "neither . . . shows emotion" was the one place that I tapped into wider
implications I think. I thought that was important, not just because it was
descriptive - I've just sat here struggling with myself not to elaborate,
because there isn't really more to say that is to do with the poem as it
exists - we could all talk about the poems that got away - but also because
it did do something with the anecdote. i didnt want an anecdote!!

L

----- Original Message -----
From: "Barry Alpert" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, September 25, 2005 8:10 PM
Subject: Re: [POETRYETC] snap - reformat


> Thanks for the detailed account of the genesis of your snapshot, Lawrence.
> I've observed the aftermath of birds having eaten blackberries growing
wild
> on my property, but not the spiders which may spin their web within that
> growth. My initial readings of your text corresponded with your prose
> gloss ("an attempt to describe seeing a living creature broken across and
> in a bird's beak"). Looking up the definition of "squelching",
considering
> the implications of "reddish", and wondering about the
> concluding "neither . . . shows emotion" led me to concoct a more
elaborate
> scenario than was warranted. I was immediately suspicious of my secondary
> interpretation, however, and therefore decided to query the author.
> Barry
>
> On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 09:37:29 +0100, Lawrence Upton
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> >Hi Barry
> >
> >I witnessed it. I was ambling up the road and looking carefully for
> blackberries, without success. It's a fairly busy road for walkers and all
> but the small late sour ones had gone. I hadn't even meant to be there but
> got caught up in a movement of 120 cows, which brought everything to a
> pause because they do it at their pace. Fell into conversation with the
> herdsman and then with another chap coming up behind; and, when the
> herdsman turned off, we continued walking and talking. It was only when we
> got to the sea, that I realised I had just followed him! It was ok. I was
> also just following my nose
> >
> >Then he asked the time and rushed off to meet his wife!
> >
> >I sat on a rock. Then I walked back, mentally blackberrying.
> >
> >It was the bird caught my attention, and I was starting to think how
> poorly I could describe it. By which time I was so close I decided to stop
> to keep it there. I'm pretty sure I saw a similar bird in Cumrbia, on a
> hedge there - though in this case it's a hedge made of granite covered in
> green growth.
> >
> >I was struck by its confidence. LIke a robin in the way it let me
approach
> and very unexpected away from town.
> >
> >And during this very small parcel of time, it had been studying the prey.
> It adjusted its position a little and I saw what it was after.
> >
> >I am quite capable of making things up or getting them from books; but
> this was a sighting
> >
> >I was struck by the transformation in a moment. The spider was smashed up
> and hanging both sides of the beak, moving a bit. The bird seemed to pause
> before completing the operation, possibly because of my proximity. I think
> I was writing the poem as I saw it all happen.
> >
> >Until then I had no snapshot poem and had been thinking of the
> ridiculousness of the situation. I was in an area of special scientific
> interest also an area of outstanding natural beauty (both official
> designations) etc etc. There was so much one could write about for 50
years
> without moving
> >
> >And I was thinking of *moments, wondering how long before this bird would
> be wiped out by its own predator... I was thinking of the mechanism of it,
> and the increase of that effect into a seeming mechanicity because _their_
> faces are not _our_ faces etc etc
> >
> >everything changed, nothing changed
> >
> >and the poem changed a lot quite rapidly
> >
> >I had not *intended the reading you put into it. maybe it's there! the
sky
> is parcelled out high density by birds of prey and the bird may well be
> dead. It almost certainly soon will be
> >
> >I had a sense I had done what I could to get that sense of everything
> killing everything, of everything being doomed - I had rejected an image
of
> drafts playing because there was no intelligence there
> >
> >Nevertheless,
> >
> >squelching
> >>both sides of a half-closed beak
> >
> >was an attempt to describe seeing a living creature broken across and in
a
> bird's beak
> >
> >Best answer I can give, I think
> >
> >Thank you for noticing the poem
> >
> >Lawrence
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Barry Alpert <[log in to unmask]>
> > To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
> > Date: Thursday, September 22, 2005 3:33 AM
> > Subject: Re: [POETRYETC] snap - reformat
> >
> >
> > On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 21:46:49 +0100, Lawrence Upton
> > <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
> > >a brightly-coloured bird
> > >snaps a reddish spider
> > >from its web among rotting berries;
> > >
> > >the silk is broken, disrupted;
> > >the food is disabled, squelching
> > >both sides of a half-closed beak
> > >
> > >neither bird nor animal shows emotion
> >
>========================================================================
> >
> > I've read this a number of times with admiration, Lawrence. Did you
> > observe the incident or its aftermath? I like the way in which you
> suggest
> > that both the arachnid and the bird expired (or will do so), if I'm
> > reading "squelching/both sides . . ." appropriately. Barry Alpert
> >========================================================================
>