sharp sun reflects in brown bundle brook

Mark Carr

sharp sun reflects in brown bundle brook
some retina stings
all this tumbles from nowhere to here
there is ticking
a weary flood plain filled to noise by race over broken stone solitude
here-hear dead workers wail
crack through the ruddy cloud sky hails Helios rays
another moment’s uncatchable
the fern heats into sweet green scent
haul-heaps rise grey into landscape
an unreal-reality in green false-time
nothing stops but life
hear the universe turn 

The Science

Colour is one of the many constructs developed by humans to help them navigate their environment using sensory cues. This construct is formed by the evolved apparatuses of the eye, the optic nerve, and the supercomputer, the brain, which take in light. This sensory system can only access a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum to form this construct. However, colour is not a universal construct. 4% of the human species can perceive colour associated with other sensory systems in the human body, other than the apparatus of sight. The term for this is synaesthesia. In some of these humans the apparatus of smell and hearing combined with the brain form colour constructs. They smell and hear colour. 

My poem was written amongst the old spoil heaps of one of the many abandoned lead mines in upper Teesdale, County Durham, UK. It is a reflection of what the landscape whispered to me. In the poem the idea of synaesthesia subconsciously emerged. The lines ‘the fern heats into sweet green scent’ recall my ability to smell green.  In the line ‘hear the universe turn’, I used ‘hear’ rather than ‘watch’, because in reality the universe does not turn, in the general understanding of the word ‘turn’, but is filled with a background electromagnetic signal, which is believed to be the ‘ghost of the Big Bang’. I hope you enjoy the lines.

The Poet

Mark Carr has been a practising artist for forty years. He has work held in: National Gallery of Australia; the Palestinian Mission, London; Ferens Art Gallery, Hull and private collections across the world. He holds: BA (hons) Fine Art, University of Sunderland, 1984; PGCE, Durham University, 1992; MA Fine Art, University of Northumbria, 1994. Mark has been writing poetry for twenty-five years taking his inspiration directly from the landscape. He has had work published in Consilience, was recently long listed for inclusion in the Butcher’s Dog poetry magazine, and in 2023 was selected for the Erbacce Poetry Prize.

Next poem: Sheen by Roger Suffling