The Running

 

1

Awakening
I think,
who I am, where I am.

First, I sniff:
earth, moss, bark,
a stream nearby.

Is anyone close?

I listen:

ants, ptarmigan, squirrels.

I stretch my legs,

up my spine and neck;

a slow luscious unfurling

There’s a sharpness to the air,

cold, fresh, ice on the leaves,

low mist.

2

Tonight, again,

The ‘Running’.

To make the colours dance…… Green, Red, Blue.

My tail will brush the snow,

will excite a spark, inflame the sky, set the world aglow…

shimmering, scintillation, radiance.

But I must run and run;

keeping the colours dancing needs constant stimulation,

it takes all my energy. 

When I have run all I can,

I fall into the snow’s embrace,

bury myself till morning.

Then, awakening, I ache so, but

I think, who I am, where I am, of my task, my responsibility:

to create the lights……and to never be seen. 

3

I am chosen. 

When I was young, 

I rebelled against being ‘special’,

but, I am chosen, and

I’m in servitude to my calling.

It is a privilege.

It’s a burden.

It is a wonder.

It’s a terror.

It is joyous.

It’s sorrowful.

It is exciting.

It’s known, preordained.

I run freely,

…but have to run.

It is ecstatic.

It’s relentless.

4 

I am rare, pure, exquisite,

I paint on the largest canvas in the world.

Sometimes, with my speed, the cold, the colours,

I can get overexcited.

I have to momentarily slow down,

concentrate hard, find myself.

My touch lights the heavens,

and all the shimmering, vibrant, melting curtains of colour

are mine to

conjure,

hold,

command,

fade;

yet I am pursued, haunted by dreams…..

I’m breathless…..falling.

5

I have the finest gift,

that of always being astonished before

forms and shapes and sounds and smells.

It is extraordinary; I am singular,

though my exhaustion is commonplace.

And I am tired now. 

My work is nearly over.

My fire is diminishing;

the next magical one will come soon.

6

But, Today, again, comes 

The ‘Running’, MY Running:

To make the colours dance…… Green, Red, Blue.

My tail will brush the snow,

My eyes will shine.

I’ll be unfettered, unrestrained, wild, free, powerful.

I’ll create sparks

that will inflame the sky

and set the world aglow…

Peter Jennings

East Sussex

2026

Miss

 1935

After simply heaps of marking,

what sport we often had, before lights-out.

Being on the same landing,

I would walk from my bed sitting room to the girl’s common room.

There we would have some fun,

ragging and chasing, singing, dancing.

Listening to the Krakajax in the dorm,

wondering at Primrose Salt’s eyes in the Tatler,

visiting any poor soul who was in the Sanitarium.

There was some good natured chiding from

those I’d had cause to reprimand.

There were some tears, homesickness: a pony, maid, dinghy missed.

I wasn’t much older than them.

I think I was thought of as a good sort, a real ‘brick’.

I usually felt that the day had been worthwhile.

1957

My first lodgings were in Willesden, then I moved to Acton.

Very small, a narrow bed, ‘kitchenette’, tiny damp bathroom.

Smell of boiled cabbage on the stairs, sound of someone practising a saxophone.

The college is all plate glass and concrete, quite ugly.

My students?….. The ‘Beatnik’ wave is on, lots of black clothes,

poetry and jazz, style and being ‘cool’, that sort of thing; it all seems a bit affected.

They’re not a particularly interested or informed class, though most turn up.

Books for the term are ‘A Glass of Blessings’, ‘Room At The Top’and ‘Pnin’.

A few make the effort to read them; we analyse: philosophy, politics.

Sometimes I get invited to join them, to a pub, coffee bar, gallery.

I feel out of place and I think they see me as something of an oddity,

quaintly anachronistic perhaps; they’re young, enjoy showing-off.

The journey back to my room is pretty miserable; there I have pasta, cheap wine.

Sometimes I take a walk, St James’ Park, Little Venice, Soho.

My teaching goes well enough, it’s hardly inspiring, but it’s tolerable.

1976

There was a prevailing earnestness,

much research, diligence, some protests, activism.

sometimes a bit precious perhaps, but borne of sincere desires.

For the most part they were serious-minded young women.

Debating, dissecting texts, re-writing fairy tales, marching for rights,

raging against subjugation, against Kinder, Kuche, Kirche.

There were Greenpeace meetings, friends of the earth meetings, anti-patriarchy

meetings, They read books from Virago Press: Dinnerstein, Kathy Acker,

Irigaray, Kate Millett, Dworkin, plus Woolf and Wollstonecraft of course.

One of them went on to write for Ritz magazine, one for Cosmopolitan,

but most stayed pretty ‘left’, stayed within academia, published papers;

some found their way to Greenham Common, animal rights, the Anti-Nazi League;

I felt part of things. My lectures were attended, discussed;

my study groups were animated, sometimes heated, always thoughtful.

I usually felt that the day had been worthwhile.

1998

It seems I’m the enemy,

loathed Middle-class, home counties, grammar school;

staff meetings are dominated by radical sermons.

I’m asked to change the pictures in my classroom,

They’re declared “Too Eurocentric”, symbols of “Imperialist Oppression”.

There’s a marked anti-English sentiment.

Staff compete to be the most ‘marginalised’, discriminated-against minority;

indigeneity is much prized, as are dysgraphia, regional accents.

Preferment is given to those considered to be from disadvantaged areas.

Head of my English faculty talks much of her holiday in Cuba.

She was a member of ‘The ‘Society For Cutting Up Men’.

With all the politics, there’s not much talk of subjects or curricula.

Today there’s anti-bias training, countering ‘Internalised Western Superiority’.

The Head recently said she thought me “aloof, superior, contemptuous”.

I don’t feel comfortable here, I’m thinking of handing in my notice.

2019

How is it that they have emerged like this?

How can it possibly be that they are so ignorant, so hostile?

They know little history, no geography, maths only for betting.

Feral isn’t the word…. post-feral, post-compassion, post-humanity.

Such animosity, loathing, aggression, nastiness.

A savage, spiteful venom, they can barely speak English.

I am unable to keep any order, they’re staring at their phones anyway; the

language is offensive, behaviour intimidating, they show me contempt, ridicule.

They talk about their favourite ‘influencers’, misogynists are popular.

They swap indecent images.

Take-away chicken boxes litter the floor,

there’s always the smell of ‘weed’.

On the way to work I feel a sense of dread rising, upset stomach,

nauseous, fear of what might happen, what they might do.

I’m leaving at the end of term; there is no worthwhile work I can do here.

Peter Jennings

East Sussex

2026

The Forest

The woods are where I'm most at home, away from clutter, prose and poem;

with trees, natural forms, I feel more free, that I have returned to where I should be.

Otherwise, by Georgian window, at walnut desk, languid, by all muses dispossessed;

distracted by empirical concerns, work eschewed, of indolence I often myself accuse.

Each daily walk, at first wearily, I pass the Institute for Logotherapy,

cross over the footbridge, into the forest, here arise the feelings most cherished.

The adventure begun, relief well-timed: a transposition of peculiar kind;

a flourishing, sensible to woodlands dense, change of light, awakened psithurist.

Along tree-lined bank of the Amper, sun glitter shimmering across the river,

following me all the way to Schöngeising; moss, leaves, fungi, my hungry eye appeasing.

This is to where I always return, the trees and quiet, for which I yearn.

Before, by water, my hibernating spirit flowed, a small flame, never extinguished, glowed;

I waited for a mobilisation of the will: Come renaissance, regeneration, a quest to fulfil.

None came, but how I longed for such, amid the smell of the Fir, Spruce, Larch;

in the woods I searched, searched, with the Beech, Oak, slender white of the Birch.

In the winter, an occasional wonder. I danced in the snow, sometimes too far,

bedazzled from the radiated glare, faint from dizzy, blind, endeavour.

Back at my desk, I ponder: has my imagination been squandered?

in some discomfort, some dismay, I think: have I anything left to say?

Now, with more solemn demeanour, I walk, hour after hour, just myself and Medeina.

over the bridge, deep in the forest, there arise the feelings most cherished.

Along tree-lined bank of the Amper, sun glitter shimmering across the river,

following me all the way to Schöngeising; moss, leaves, fungi, my hungry eye appeasing.

This is to where I always return, to the trees and quiet, for which I yearn.

Peter Jennings

East Sussex

2026