Argument: herbs and ingredients are found in the forest and Lathy chooses a new transport.We lost the map as we bound through the trees, scraping hands on barks, flinging branches to knees and battling on in pursuit of the body through the leaves.
Who was she and why did she hide from us in the distance and the trees?
[It’s easy to hide in trees – trees are easy to hide behind if you want your face unseen as the space inbetween each trunk and branch is a shadow, leg or torso – the face is not seen.]
And we ran, and we ran, some miles and the ponies panted and struggled over the roots and leaf litter – we battered at their sides and hit him and hit her to speed our way on – but grew slower and slower, an abundance of fatigue on the four of us, lower and lower went the top height of the hooves as we snailed on.
And we lost her – that body that shape through trees.
“We must
(…said Lathy…)
find that woman
and ask her why she circled us,
took a notice of us,
ran from us.”
***
Mapless, preyless, we walked over to the clearing with its fire that smoked around us – a man sat stirring a pot of leaves, some leaves in a pot of burnt metal and potion.
“She’s lost
(… the man said, stirring…)
never to find
her place around you, nor her way
to struggle your passage
through the forest.”
We sat down and watched him stir his pot – never tasting but adding a sprig, a twig and leaf.
“Forests
(… he continued…)
are just boxes
unconstructed but still hiding
what is hidden inside
all those boxes.”
More stirring and smoke – a drop of herb here, a mortared seed, a pestled stem – a petal unbroken, powder of some semi-precious gem were dropped in the pot to simmer in this lived-in spot of the forest.
“Listen
(… he finished…)
carefully now:
you’ll be lost inside this forest
unless you follow me
to the fountain.”
Lathy looked at him and nodded.
***
Thomas the Herbalist took us to his tent– the forest where he found his herbs, where the herbs found their way to him and the trees from Acacia to Yew, the forest was his home.
I was sent to the river for water – the moon still rising, the sun setting, and in the gloaming the surface resonated in blackness, metal, in calm – I lifted stones to throw in the quiet and watch the ripples and wished for a reversal and a stone to fountain back to my hand.
The trees stood around, some falling, some fallen and it seemed to me – I said so to Lathy later – that all the sun and the moon was holding them up and that neither moved and so the trees stand still in the manner they report.
Walking back with the bucket I saw broken glass – green, brown and clear – on the floor, saw Buckfast bottles and plastic forks, cartons and polystyrene – I tiptoed through burnt tree trunks and parties that had been and dropped the water at Lathy and Thomas.
He was singing a recipe for a potion:
“Kidneywort plus distillation
of Butcher’s Broom and Liquorice
make great claims for improved stomachs
if you wish, you wish and if you wish.”
Lathy nodded in agreement.
“Tell me –
can you help me?
I need to find Celebrity
and am sure a potion
will satisfy.”
Thomas looked at him, stood and asked Lathy to do likewise.
“A dwarf
and some knighthood…
what are you, man, that you require
a drink from yours truly
to make you large?
“Mass made –
the lot of you.
No luxury in what you do,
knights are made of damp straw
and nothing more.
“You dwarf
are one of lots
picked and managed to your knighthood
and accepted, in part,
as authentic."
“She’s lost
(… the man said, stirring…)
never to find
her place around you, nor her way
to struggle your passage
through the forest.”
We sat down and watched him stir his pot – never tasting but adding a sprig, a twig and leaf.
“Forests
(… he continued…)
are just boxes
unconstructed but still hiding
what is hidden inside
all those boxes.”
More stirring and smoke – a drop of herb here, a mortared seed, a pestled stem – a petal unbroken, powder of some semi-precious gem were dropped in the pot to simmer in this lived-in spot of the forest.
“Listen
(… he finished…)
carefully now:
you’ll be lost inside this forest
unless you follow me
to the fountain.”
Lathy looked at him and nodded.
***
Thomas the Herbalist took us to his tent– the forest where he found his herbs, where the herbs found their way to him and the trees from Acacia to Yew, the forest was his home.
I was sent to the river for water – the moon still rising, the sun setting, and in the gloaming the surface resonated in blackness, metal, in calm – I lifted stones to throw in the quiet and watch the ripples and wished for a reversal and a stone to fountain back to my hand.
The trees stood around, some falling, some fallen and it seemed to me – I said so to Lathy later – that all the sun and the moon was holding them up and that neither moved and so the trees stand still in the manner they report.
Walking back with the bucket I saw broken glass – green, brown and clear – on the floor, saw Buckfast bottles and plastic forks, cartons and polystyrene – I tiptoed through burnt tree trunks and parties that had been and dropped the water at Lathy and Thomas.
He was singing a recipe for a potion:
“Kidneywort plus distillation
of Butcher’s Broom and Liquorice
make great claims for improved stomachs
if you wish, you wish and if you wish.”
Lathy nodded in agreement.
“Tell me –
can you help me?
I need to find Celebrity
and am sure a potion
will satisfy.”
Thomas looked at him, stood and asked Lathy to do likewise.
“A dwarf
and some knighthood…
what are you, man, that you require
a drink from yours truly
to make you large?
“Mass made –
the lot of you.
No luxury in what you do,
knights are made of damp straw
and nothing more.
“You dwarf
are one of lots
picked and managed to your knighthood
and accepted, in part,
as authentic."
I knew what he meant – the King has many knights – there are simplistic means of production – it is not hard to make a knight these days – once crafted, now simply made (ill-made, half-made, milk-made, man-made).
“Potions
and medicines
are similar – you ingest them
in happy ignorance
when you’re told to.”
He held up a bottle that lit from the fire into a green and gold flame – the label read “SICKLY” – he sang:
“Duck’s Meat root
and soot of Harlequin
in clarified honey
cures the sickly yin.”
This is about ingredients – what’s needed and what’s required, where to find them and what to do – only the herbalist in his forest hermitage ever knew.
“But this
is the potion
for you – ingredients cheaply
lifting and ascending
from infamy:
“Take Clown’s Wood
and Columbine –
associate
with Proserpine,
Heseltine,
root and leaf
of Love-Thee-Mine
mortared, pestled
in oil of Walnut
then smeared
on the chest –
that done best
quite barely,
no armour –
and a plaster applied
and breathing denied
for no more
than thirty seconds.”
With a smile and flourish of hands he ran off to the river, shouting back:
“Follow
me down the path
to the fountain where the flowers
and stalks will be chosen
to make your fame!”
We brought the ponies to the water, splashing through, mud on our feet, ankles sodden with the river and the ground the other side.
Thomas sang for us to follow him and we found him leaning on a pipe from the earth bent right-angled like an airshaft on an ocean liner.
“Witness
( … he said …)
this fierce fountain
and the road down which the flourish
forces its way to seas
of empty lands!”
We looked down the avenue between the trees that the pipe, the airshaft, this flourishing fountain looked down to as well – a brown, decayed path through the trees, some carpet to the distance that met at some point on the horizon.
Thomas pulled a leaver and a rumble began – some thudder from the earth and with a splutter a flower puked out of the pipe, then a second, then a thousand – next a million flowers erupting from this pipe!
What a sight! like some dream…
The flowers piled up, then were pushed by the force from the fountain and some swift glacier of petals moved slow, slow, quick, pirouette-ing slow down the hill and covering the brown, the decay of old flowers.
Thomas stepped by, picking flowers and stems at random to choose for his potion, discarding those he didn’t need – he chanted:
… sweet marjoram, wild dog’s grass,
daisies, coralwort and horehound,
flux-weed and knotwound,
birds-foot, next beech-tree,
juniper and dittany
and jacinths and piss-a-bed,
shit-a-chair, fuck-a-shy,
rubenesque, glory-rose,
crush-a-bye, baby bound,
bough-fallen, dodder thyme,
caraway, rush honeysuckle,
pussy-lickle, tamarisk
the thistle star, the jack-a-hedge,
come sanicle and saxifrage,
sedge-worth under worthsedge,
wordsworth over southeywort,
coleredge mixing keat’s claveron
some byron hair with shelley sop
now crowfoot, now crowfoot,
now crowfoot some more
the clown’s wood, the clown’s wood
the clown’s wood, to roar! …
Lathy and I stepped closer, inches from the movement, the torrent of plant life forcing down the hill.
“Follow
(… it’s always follow, we always follow…)
me this way, squire,
and we’ll find her – she ran down here
some imagination
of flowered thoughts!”
With that he mounted his pony and stepped the muddied hooves into this drier stream – they were pulled in and sent drifting on the bloom – dare I follow? I am my master’s squire and my pony, occupation and life belong to him – I mounted, stepped and flowered down the river – the fountain pumping out our flow and Thomas still counting, enumerating his ingredients.
“Follow,
follow, follow,
follow – follow the flowering
stream to the end of that
flowering road.”
“Potions
and medicines
are similar – you ingest them
in happy ignorance
when you’re told to.”
He held up a bottle that lit from the fire into a green and gold flame – the label read “SICKLY” – he sang:
“Duck’s Meat root
and soot of Harlequin
in clarified honey
cures the sickly yin.”
This is about ingredients – what’s needed and what’s required, where to find them and what to do – only the herbalist in his forest hermitage ever knew.
“But this
is the potion
for you – ingredients cheaply
lifting and ascending
from infamy:
“Take Clown’s Wood
and Columbine –
associate
with Proserpine,
Heseltine,
root and leaf
of Love-Thee-Mine
mortared, pestled
in oil of Walnut
then smeared
on the chest –
that done best
quite barely,
no armour –
and a plaster applied
and breathing denied
for no more
than thirty seconds.”
With a smile and flourish of hands he ran off to the river, shouting back:
“Follow
me down the path
to the fountain where the flowers
and stalks will be chosen
to make your fame!”
We brought the ponies to the water, splashing through, mud on our feet, ankles sodden with the river and the ground the other side.
Thomas sang for us to follow him and we found him leaning on a pipe from the earth bent right-angled like an airshaft on an ocean liner.
“Witness
( … he said …)
this fierce fountain
and the road down which the flourish
forces its way to seas
of empty lands!”
We looked down the avenue between the trees that the pipe, the airshaft, this flourishing fountain looked down to as well – a brown, decayed path through the trees, some carpet to the distance that met at some point on the horizon.
Thomas pulled a leaver and a rumble began – some thudder from the earth and with a splutter a flower puked out of the pipe, then a second, then a thousand – next a million flowers erupting from this pipe!
What a sight! like some dream…
The flowers piled up, then were pushed by the force from the fountain and some swift glacier of petals moved slow, slow, quick, pirouette-ing slow down the hill and covering the brown, the decay of old flowers.
Thomas stepped by, picking flowers and stems at random to choose for his potion, discarding those he didn’t need – he chanted:
… sweet marjoram, wild dog’s grass,
daisies, coralwort and horehound,
flux-weed and knotwound,
birds-foot, next beech-tree,
juniper and dittany
and jacinths and piss-a-bed,
shit-a-chair, fuck-a-shy,
rubenesque, glory-rose,
crush-a-bye, baby bound,
bough-fallen, dodder thyme,
caraway, rush honeysuckle,
pussy-lickle, tamarisk
the thistle star, the jack-a-hedge,
come sanicle and saxifrage,
sedge-worth under worthsedge,
wordsworth over southeywort,
coleredge mixing keat’s claveron
some byron hair with shelley sop
now crowfoot, now crowfoot,
now crowfoot some more
the clown’s wood, the clown’s wood
the clown’s wood, to roar! …
Lathy and I stepped closer, inches from the movement, the torrent of plant life forcing down the hill.
“Follow
(… it’s always follow, we always follow…)
me this way, squire,
and we’ll find her – she ran down here
some imagination
of flowered thoughts!”
With that he mounted his pony and stepped the muddied hooves into this drier stream – they were pulled in and sent drifting on the bloom – dare I follow? I am my master’s squire and my pony, occupation and life belong to him – I mounted, stepped and flowered down the river – the fountain pumping out our flow and Thomas still counting, enumerating his ingredients.
“Follow,
follow, follow,
follow – follow the flowering
stream to the end of that
flowering road.”
prev - 2.1 In the forest
next - 2.3 On the plain
