Horizon: Journey of a Mind!

By Harry Cavendish

'There are only trees on this winter scene
Their upward pointing leafless twigs are
Shrill with the calm of loveliness,
And the Sun laughs down, baleful, with a bleary smile.'

A book of poetry with imagery and concepts polished over a lifetime of intellectual inquiry. At 58 years old, it is Cavendish’s first collection of poetry and represents the start of his career rather than the end.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Nov 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781398494657

Harry Cavendish

Harry Cavendish is a 58-year-old living in Co. Wicklow. Early in his career he gave up working as an estate agent to pursue both spiritual and philosophical inquiry, often living on the edge. It even meant a year living off-grid on a remote island off the Connemara coast, in a tiny caravan. Currently, while pursuing his love of writing poetry, he is gainfully employed on a farm in Wicklow.

Book preview

Acorns

Beneath the proud escarpment where swallows and swifts anchor

Cunning country lanes wind in and out

No tarmac laid, just a central ridge flanked by a hard-pressed loamy clay

No different a shape now than when patterned by horses’ hooves.

The isolated farmhouses tucked up in bed

Or at least looking suggestive of sleep

Where slaves to the cycles of nature abide

Custodians of the fabric of all life in husbandry, for the future to keep.

The branches of the oak trees round about, flamboyant

And then a cacophony of bird song giving the hanging Acorns,

The resonance of bullets swinging in the breeze

Their ancient nobility never failing to please.

Amongst this network, spiders’ gossamer lies like fishing nets

Draped across the scattered gorse and beautiful to peer at

In a thousand years no Architect could emulate it,

But in science if we are careful, we can safely steer all that!

Aloysius

It is 4 o’clock in the morning

The leaden thud of the Abbey bell is calling

Its sound alone to be heard across the hushed landscape

No mesh or complex thoughts now within, adorning

A herd of cattle wander down for milking

Brother Aloysius walks them on without thinking

No more to this than just the rhythm of a monastic farm

Prayers intent on protecting us from harm

Inside the Chapel ‘The Abbot’ intones to his peers

The Benedictine rule unchanged this last 1000 years

How I could sink into this place

Leaving society without a trace?

From Terra Firma it would release me

But I could not fit living by decree

And so, I can only come here as a witness

Oh God, you have me cornered, why is life so pitiless?

Bird

Don’t try to follow the Owl with a gaze

It will disappear off into the night sky

Mysterious bird, how elegant an apparition

Of course, you can still hear her distinctive