Mill Hill. (Plus Note to Poem).

I love to walk in these fields at midnight,
Feel the earth breathing beneath my feet,
A stressed out mother deep in slumber.

I love to sit still on the south facing slope,
Watch galaxies pulse through magical skies,
A trillion heart beats in the tumult of space.

I love especially the warm June nights
When I can hear wandering foxes cry
Across distances only the fiercest would travel.

This is my dream time, private and holy,
When I can look further than daylight allows,
Or sense the depths lost far beneath silence
Where linger the ghosts of ancestral voices:

Ancestors who farmed where executives` houses
Now litter the fields where hay was once scythed,
And Wilberforce built his plain little church.

I love to walk in these fields at midnight,
The slope overlooks where the farm once nestled
Among English Elms taller than spires.

But the trees have all gone, and the grand little houses
Huddle together, row upon row,
Like strangers lost in the promised land.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
August 1966. - May 5th. - 6th. - 9th. 2018.

Note to Poem. This poem remains very much an example of the style that I was trying to achieve in the nineteen sixties when I was close to the London Hippies, but never fully integrated into their life style. While approving their interest in communal living and mysticism, I was critical of their lazy thinking and the taking of mind altering drugs. I sketched the prototype to this poem in 1966, but could never pull the various strands together to weave a completed picture. It was only when I discovered that members of my mothers` family had farmed fields on what is now the edge of the green belt to the north of London that I was given a context in which to place my ideas. They farmed the land as far back as the earliest years of the nineteenth century, and witnessed the building of St. Paul`s Church that was founded by William Wilberforce  because the handful of local villagers were having to walk several miles to attend the Sunday services. The suburban housing that encroached on the heights of Mill Hill in the first forty years of the twentieth century, seem banal and out of place in the context of the remaining fields and the ragged clumps of trees and bushes.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter. May 9th. 2018.

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Delayed Spring. (Revised).

A week of snow prophesied.
Sirius scratching a chill clear sky
Confirms the weatherman,
His crystal ball proved accurate.

You say you want to move in with me?
Your camper not fit for purpose,
The motor defunct.
Parked under a grove of icicles,
The makeshift roof half off.

Yes, you had better move in with me;
Your presence on the sofa in the front room
Would make my house seem cosy,
Would bring the glitz of Eden that much closer.
And besides, you are not really a country girl,
Although you were born in a wagon,
The moon glinting through old lace.
Out in all weathers is not your style,
And we both hate living like hermits.

Yes, you had better move in quickly,
The heirloom that your grandmother gave me
Would easily fit your finger,
And you wont run off with my cash
The moment the weather turns fine.
Your honesty is not overrated,
You would rather starve than steal.

So burn that old camper, sell your dogs and chickens
To the lady who lives down the lane,
She will give you the price of your ticket.
Even if the snow should last a full year
Your smile will awaken my garden.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
February 26th. - 27th. - April 30th. - May 1st. - 4th. 2018.

Birthday Blues.

This is the birthday my mother never reached,
The birthday that she most looked forward to.

This morning I study my face in the steamed up mirror.
Not too young. Not too old.
But perhaps my features are just a mask after all,
An actors mask designed to show a calm
That I have rarely felt, or rarely looked for.
For seventy five years I have been marooned on this planet,
The raging storm my natural environment.

My attempts at humour are usually oafish,
But no thing is permanent, no thing can stay the same.
These hands that once danced easily upon the cello strings
Are now twisted out of shape,
And music is something I can only dream about.
I listen to unaccompanied Bach on the radio
And mock my inability to play one coherent note.

Tomorrow I shall go and study the paintings of Monet,
Perhaps his painterly eye for the natural world
Will fill me with wonder, calm my anger at time,
But more likely not.
I shall be in a part of London I lived in when very young
And all the people I knew then are just photographs in my album.
I have long ago given up looking for friendly faces
In the hectic squall of the throng.

This is the birthday my mother never reached,
The birthday that she most looked forward to.
This morning I study my face in the bathroom mirror
And wonder if she would recognise me now.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
April 26th. 2018.
My mother died just three weeks short of her seventy fifth birthday in 1991.

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