Tag Archives: exmoor

Moorland Night

June 15, 2022exmoor, poem, Poetryexmoor, night, poem, poetry, skyThe Cheesesellers Wife

Stars pooled like milk at zenith
coloured lights tracking across
blinking

Deep night swallows all light
here on the Moor

Stone in Water

February 16, 2022exmoor, nature, poem, Poetryexmoor, nature, poem, poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

Deep plunge pool in the heart of the moor
Centred in spring time unfurling of bracken
Shadowed by a twisted thorn tree
Water pours in over a mossy lip
Large pebbles line the sloping
Glowing colours in crystal water

Something falls
Breaks the surface
Circles upon circles radiate
Contours ripple to a point of disappearance
Sparkle in the dawn light
Stone in the water

Church

January 15, 2022Life, philosophy, poem, Poetrychurch, exmoor, Life, philosophy, poem, poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

Moorland lurks in my soul
skies that bleed rain, seep mist
slant slopes that yearn for sunlight in winter
twilight danger as sharp branched trees close in
a dance with the lowering sky
someone once said it was my altar
my shadow a church spire across bog

On Blue Anchor Beach, Exmoor

September 8, 2021nature, poem, Poetrybeach, beauty, exmoor, Life, nature, poem, poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

Crevasses hide slidden trees
while cliff tops have shed huge rocks
now littered out below
like unstrung Brobdingnagian beads

On this miss-sized jewellers of a beach
glittering with quartz and pearled fossils
we scamper over curled dark pools
fish for a sense of perspective

Only Exmoor

September 1, 2021exmoor, poem, Poetryexmoor, poem, poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

Only Exmoor stretches out to embrace the whole sky in its immensity
Reflects its moods and colours, its nurture and destruction
Only the moor is as fickle as the sky

Today the moor is swallowed as clouds subsume the uplands
Yesterday it shed water like the clouds themselves
Tomorrow it will shimmer with heat, dry and unforgiving

Trees hide in hollows, afraid to stand in the open
Sheep bones litter the spring hillsides
Peaty silty bogs nestle with gorse , bracken and heather

Only Exmoor reaches out to bleed the very rain from the sky
To lie seeming gentle with its folds and billows, green fields abutting the heather
Then to gladly accept the gifts of deadly snow, killing floods, baking heat

This poem first appeared in Peacock Journal 2017

Poem published at Poetry and Places

September 18, 2020England, exmoorexmoor, published poemThe Cheesesellers Wife

I’m delighted to tell you that my poem ‘Only Exmoor’ has been published at Poetry and Places:

Only Exmoor by Kim Whysall-Hammond

Poetry and Places is a site that shares travel adventures and celebrates our planet through poetry.

Standing on Dunkery

July 27, 2020beauty, exmoor, Life, love, nature, poem, Poetrybeauty, Dunkery Beacon, Earthweal, exmoor, love, nature, poem, poetry, Wild lifeThe Cheesesellers Wife

Any hill will do
They all are sacred, but
Dunkery at twilight
As mist seeps up from
Purple heather
Horizons broaden out
And valleys settle into shadow

Sheep bleat, asking for their land back
But we walk the broad path
To a scattered mound of stone
Skirting nervous wild ponies
As the sun paints them golden

Ponies never ask, it is always theirs
As it belonged to the mound builders
Five thousand years ago
As it belongs
And doesn’t belong
To us all
But especially tonight
To me and mine

Written in response to this weeks EarthWeal challenge “Sacred Landscapes“. Exmoor is very special and it’s highest point, Dunkery Beacon, even more so.

Lights : A Speculative poem

July 18, 2020poem, Poetry, Science Fiction Poetry, speculative poetryapocalypse, exmoor, poem, poetry, published poem, Science Fiction, Science Fiction Poetry, speculative poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

Moonlight feathers treetops
reveals hill slopes, shadows gullies
sketches out my beautiful Exmoor.
Lone headlights angle skywards on the west horizon
twisting along the high road.
I watch at the window on this cold night
as the car winds along towards us
praying
(to however may
or may not be listening)
that traitor Moon
will not glint on my rifle barrel.

Gripping the gun with amateurs nerves,
I reach for Eva’s hand
and we hold our breath while
a child cries fitfully in the house.
We all have broken sleep in these remaining days.
We eke out, stand watch, wait.
For what? For a quiet death perhaps.
But in the day we want very much to live
so we tend straggling sheep, shoot rabbit,
go on.

Fear clutches my gut as the car turns past empty houses
and down along our valley road,
and a form of relief washes us as it continues on
following the river to richer pickings in the southern towns.
I move my baby to feed at my other breast
and mourn the futures stolen from her,
the violence awaiting.

‘Lights’ was first published in The Future Fire: http://press.futurefire.net/2019/05/new-issue-201949.html

Stone in the Water

June 10, 2020exmoor, Life, poem, Poetryexmoor, poem, poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

Something falls
Breaks the surface
Circles upon circles radiate
Contours ripple to a point of disappearance
Sparkle in the dawn light
Stone in the water

Re-blogged from 2016.

Rain on the moor

October 12, 2019beauty, England, exmoor, Life, poem, Poetry, weatherEngland, exmoor, Life, poem, poetry, rainThe Cheesesellers Wife

Here on the moor
Rain closes you down
Takes away the horizon
Soaks and settles
Creates hazards
Can flood and kill

Rain lashes at the face
Stinging like needles
Sends cold tendrils down the neck
Seeps into all things
Deepens bogs and fords
Hides the path from view

A rainy day on the moor
Be it drizzle or a squall
Leaves you slipping and tumbling
Heading for shelter
Dripping at the pub or tearoom door
Grateful for the warm and dry