Spitfire

This bridge traverses so much sky,

Such clear depth of open air

As tempts my aircraft under there;

It seemed ungrateful not to try.

I held my breath. A sudden flick

Of shadow on my face; my joy

Reflected in that waving boy;

The cliff face zipping by so quick-

Now, zooming high, I see the far

Welsh mountains in the dawning glow

While Bristol's half-asleep below,

And steer towards the morning star.

I was in Bristol yesterday for the IsamBards' second poetic outing, a walk around the Clifton Suspension Bridge. This poem was my small contribution, which they kindly invited me to make as I'm so keen on the stories of the pilots who've flown under that very bridge.


Laura Hilton, the Clifton Suspension Bridge's Visitor Centre Manager, introduces the poets Deborah Harvey, Pameli Benham, Stewart Carswell and David C Johnson

the Cliftonwood rainbow

cliftonwood, originally uploaded by Dru Marland.

...a row of houses overlooking Bristol Harbour. I think this was the first terrace in Bristol to go multicoloured. Presumably, somebody once thought "I'll paint the house a cheerful colour" and then the neighbours saw it and thought "Oh, good idea..."

There's a newly built development just below here which was painted multicoloured from the start. Which seems a bit cheaty.

Mayflower

Mayflower, originally uploaded by Dru Marland.

Mayflower is the oldest tug in the world, probably. And she lives in Bristol Harbour, and at the moment is up on the slip at the Underfall Yard, having a bit of an overhaul. So I popped down there to have a go at drawing her. The workers were all eating their sandwiches when I arrived, which was a shame as I'd hoped to draw them at work. Fortunately, they did start after a while; or at least, the chap with the back-to-front hat did. So there is a bit of action!

easter hares

 

 With Easter upon us, the moon waxing towards full and the celandines in bloom, here's a timely picture. (I just re-uploaded it because I realised that the version I had online was the unfinished one, without the Uffington White Horse....)

Here's Deborah Harvey's poem.

Full Circle

In ancient China
the moon is made of figured silk,
woven with the pattern of galloping hares,
three conjoined by a single ear,
together whole.

An eternal circle
embroidered on bolts of cloth,
carried by camel through singing sands,
the booming dunes of wind-whipped
Xhiang Sha Wan,

where Silk Road
frays to quick oasis, and
wondering artists paint three hares
on sacred temple cavern walls.
The Buddha’s wheel

of life and death
rolls through Persia’s burning plains,
eclipses sere, salt-desert suns: a brazen tray
engraved with hares, a stamped,
Islamic copper coin.

Crossing rivers, bridging rifts
in hidden groves of moss and stone,
these three hares chased on Jewish tombs
and makeshift tabernacle roofs,
the blackened beams

of Dartmoor churches
at the edges of the earth, bear
a trinity of hares, three in one, the risen son,
beneath a moon that pins
the universal oceans.

mapping

Dart map, originally uploaded by Dru Marland.

Here's a map of Dartmoor in the 14th century, at the time of the Black Death. It's for Deborah Harvey's novel Dart, due to be published this year. It was fun to draw, once I'd worked out how to go about it- something vaguely in the style of a mediaeval map, and those brightly coloured postcard maps that you used to get in the 60s.

A useful tool for getting the perspective right was Google Earth, and a fun by-product of using Google Earth is goofing around on the flight simulator that's available in the tools options. Flying under the Saltash Bridge in an F16 is great fun, and one unattended by the risk of a knock at the door from the CAA. Very unmediaeval!

ravening

raven a video by Dru Marland on Flickr.

A bit of wildness passed through the neighbourhood yesterday morning. I was tapping away at the computer and making my way through a big bowl of coffee (Illy espresso, hot milk, squirty cream and a sprinkle of cocoa. It was Sunday morning). I heard a distinctive cronking. Hauling up the sash window, I leaned out just in time to see a raven dive through the back gardens, rolling as it went, then climbing and cronking in an exuberant wide curve over Westbury Park. I scrambled up the ladder to the roof, and watched as it was joined by a second raven, and they beat round in another circuit, putting a flight of finches into a fluster as they went.

Then they were gone, and there was just the pink-tinged cirrus of the late dawn, way high up, and closer overhead the businesslike grey clouds, fresh from Africa and scudding north as fast as the breeze would carry them.

the Canberra that went under the bridge

Canberra and suspension bridge, originally uploaded by Dru Marland.

Continuing my series of true, gen-yoo-wine and authentic pictures of Aeroplanes That Flew Under The Clifton Suspension Bridge, here is a Canberra B2 jet bomber of 101 Squadron RAF, doing just that, on a summer's morning in 1951.

Come to think of it, in default of any further information on that flight, I reckon it's probably the 60th anniversary.

Shocking to think that it was so long ago... when I was very young, in Lancashire, I used to watch English Electric Lightnings flying around above where we lived, out on the flatlands of Longton Moss. They glinted silvery in the sun. They were test flying, from Samlesbury.

English Electric also built the Canberra. When we drove into Preston, we used to pass a long factory building that said English Electric on the wall, and I got excited at the thought of the jet aeroplanes they were building inside. It was not for some years that I discovered the company also built fridges....

..funny business, the companies that got involved with aircraft building. Like Boulton-Paul, who built the rather disastrous Defiant, and who are (or were) better known for building garden sheds....

some tags: flight, flying, flew, under, beneath, Bristol, Avon Gorge, aircraft, aeroplanes, RAF

Three Hares

Full Circle

In ancient China
the moon is made of figured silk,
woven with the pattern of galloping hares,
three conjoined by a single ear,
together whole.

An eternal circle
embroidered on bolts of cloth,
carried by camel through singing sands,
the booming dunes of wind-whipped
Xhiang Sha Wan,

where Silk Road
frays to quick oasis, and
wondering artists paint three hares
on sacred temple cavern walls.
The Buddha’s wheel

of life and death
rolls through Persia’s burning plains,
eclipses sere, salt-desert suns: a brazen tray
engraved with hares, a stamped,
Islamic copper coin.

Crossing rivers, bridging rifts
in hidden groves of moss and stone,
these three hares chased on Jewish tombs
and makeshift tabernacle roofs,
the blackened beams

of Dartmoor churches
at the edges of the earth, bear
a trinity of hares, three in one, the risen son,
beneath a moon that pins
the universal oceans.

The poem is by Deborah Harvey. I did the picture because it's a hares time of year. Here are more trinities of hares.