Dartmoor created

Where our creative father laid to rest

Wild heather seeds upon her breast.

Breathing warm mist of silvery dew

unto her heart for growth anew.

Out of her earth, out of her peat

grew purple blossom, so fragrant and sweet.

Grew ancient oak with heavy bow.

Grew prickly mass of golden gorse.

Grew Rowan tree with blood red berry

Grew Ash, grew Fir, grew sullen willow.

Grew fresh green Bracken with feathered frond.

Grew Hazel tree with withered wand.

Grew small cotton wisps of dandelion seed,

Buttercups overflowing with sweet honey mead

Golden, yellow petals caressed by the sun.

Father God, Mother earth, they breath as one.

Upon this earth the creatures alighted.

The song birds twittered and whistled delighted.

The butterfly flittered her delicate wings.

Whilst within morass grass the Cricket sings.

In labour she heaved with painful sigh

and gave birth with encouraging cry.

The spider weaved her silken shroud

of angel hair and stormy cloud.

And their tears of joy entwined together,

forming brook and stream and peaty brown river.

And their mother smiled at her children’s faces

into her arms all nature embraces.

God scattered his earth with grey granite stone,

Some sculptured on hilltops and few stand alone.

Finally the lord shut his creative hands,

Satisfied with his labour,

Where Dartymoor stands.

Melissa Williams, May 1998

A Buzzard in flight

Sat upon a bench of cold, grey granite,

dressed in colourful moss and litchen.

I observe the Buzzard, and he watches me.

With shrewd piercing eyes of orange and black.

Attired in plumage of ruffled, brown feathers

bespeckled with traces of creamy white,

Where God held you in his warm, gentle hands,

satisfied with his perfect creation.

With little effort he leaps into a mottled cloudy sky,

gently gliding, then silently soaring,

catching the thermals with outstretched wings,

sending him spiraling higher and higher,

until he almost touches Gods angels.

He preys on the meek, not out of greed,

but to relieve the hunger gnawing his empty belly.

A movement on the ground attracts his attention.

Hungrily he hovers observing his prey.

He drops from the sky like a shadowing rock,

plunging downwards towards his terrified, trembling feast,

pouncing with startling precision.

Alas death comes quickly,

as he tears at the carcass without grace,

until his rumbling hunger is satisfied.

The sun has gone a full circle of life.

I say a quiet farewell to the feathered felon

as he takes off into a purple red sunset,

climbing into the cloud hugging sky,

until he becomes a dot on the horizon,

and disappears from sight.

You become yet another precious moment

etched within my memory.

A memory of a craggy wilderness,

endowed with mother natures gift.....

.....of a Buzzard in flight.

Melissa Williams, April 1997