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Beeston Hill
Posted: 09 October 2012
Word Count: 174
Summary: Sheringham Norfolk
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BEESTON HILL
Here
on just climbed
Beeston Hill
heavy-breathed thoughts
are memoried in joy
The changeless calm
of remembrance and
uncluttered peace
of mind sings
in the urgent Norfolk wind
Here
is no then or when
no next or soon
tomorrow tends itself
yesterday’s love abides
in the cherished memories
of childhood dreams
Never lost
Never gone
Or forgot
Here
the impassive sea
is calm today
the air alive with hope
from West Runton
to Weybourne
with Sheringham in between
A champagne day
of sun and light
captured in tiny Anna’s
giggles of delight in life
Here
voices thread the breeze
calling re-calling
echoing down the years
friendship’s horizon shared
ever seen never crossed
from timeless Wells to
Brancaster and Cley
We walked and talked
We laughed a lot
and let our spirits fly
Here
stands this proud
but modest hill
dividing land and sea
a place for rooting memories
a place to simply be
a timestone on our journey
returning whence we came
the arc of life a circle
ever-changing yet the same
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Comments by other Members
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 Midnight_Sun at 12:17 on 10 October 2012
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I think this is a beautiful poem,
there are some lines that really stand out for me
A champagne day
of sun and light
captured in tiny Anna’s
giggles of delight in life |
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a place for rooting memories
a place to simply be |
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The only thing I would change is the first stanza, I would take out 'just climbed' as I think you don't need it.
The last two lines finish it perfectly
the arc of life a circle
ever-changing yet the same |
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Wonderful writing, thanks for sharing it!
Patricia
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 Dave Morehouse at 14:07 on 10 October 2012
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Hi Zettel. I absolutely love your choice of the word "Here" to begin each stanza. It throws the reader into the scene. It demands we look at the beautiful pictures painted. I actually like 'just climbed'. It gives us the sense that we need to work at this poem. We need to climb into the scene. I understand its redundance though. Perhaps something like this would work equally.
Wonderful scenes. Thanks for sharing this one. I feel as though I have 'visited' rather than read. Dave
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.JPG) Zettel at 14:24 on 12 October 2012
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Thanks for the comments. Glad you liked the poem. The 'just-climbed' was to make sense of 'heavy-breathed'.
Best
Z
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 James Graham at 12:06 on 13 October 2012
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Ditto to what has been said by Patricia and Dave. I liked too the naming of places - in the context of your evocation of the land and sea, and the feelings they inspire, the place-names gain a kind of resonance. I was reminded of Edward Thomas's 'Yes, I remember Adlestrop' - he immortalised that little country town.
James.
<Added>
And 'timestone' is very striking. Did you coin the word, or had you come across it somewhere? It's new to me. Such an apt word for a place that has been part of people's lives through generation after generation.
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Zettel at 23:18 on 14 October 2012
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Thanks for the comments James.
I've never seen 'timestone' used.
I was thinking of the metaphorical use of 'milestone' as something that marks a significant point on a journey ie essentially in 'space' and wanted something that would carry both the sense of a given place but also of a significant time, and 'timestone' sort of invented itself.
The more i thought about the actual meaning and role of 'milestones' the more appropriate the reference seemed to be. Actual Milestones are now rare: they have been replaced by road-signs which give so much more information - direction, relative position to many other destinations. Road signs are for a different time, and purpose - more directed, more specific, more multi-purpose. They are for people who travel much usually in cars etc.
The humble milestone simply gave a sense of progress to anyone on all kinds of journeys - usually perhaps on foot. Even horse-drawn coaches presumably just used them as a 'where-we're-up-to' etc.
Beeston Hill was very much like that for us - but in time as well as place.
The poem was occasioned by two families who for about 10 years, the last time 15+ years ago, at each Autumn half-term would hire a house on the very cliffs at Sheringham and for a week simply walk and talk and make our own amusements. Over the years we did things we would always do: the walk to West Runton; another to Weybourne, visit to the timeless Wells-next-the-sea, the vast beach at Holkham shown in the final shots of Shakespeare In Love etc etc.
One of our number wanted to revisit the place and our shared pasts and we got all the kids ( now married and with so far 1 grandchild) together to celebrate her 60th birthday. And it was magical: perfect weather and all the 'kids' excitedly remembering the minutiae of our/their visits. This special place is pa part of the narratives of their diverging lives.
The poem was a gift for the birthday girl.
If any of you have never been to the Norfolk Coast don't be put off by nonsense about 'flat and uninteresting' - painters from Constable and Dutch schools sought out Norfolk and Suffolk because of the extraordinary quality of light emanating from a sky like a cathedral with a sliver of land at the base. It is one of the most 'open' places I have ever been with a sense of freedom from 'clutter' and muddle that is unique.
best
Z
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James Graham at 17:08 on 16 October 2012
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Thank you for giving us all this background to your poem. It strikes many chords with me as I also value certain places which are special. Some places call up a strong sense of continuity - an awareness that the place was almost certainly special to people from ancient times through historic times to the present, for different reasons to be sure, but sometimes perhaps for similar reasons to ours, because they were ‘part of the narratives of their diverging lives’. Maybe Beeston Hill was such a place for pre-Saxon people.
I like the idea that each generation re-creates a place, finds new meaning in it.
Milestones are very resonant too - if you ever come across one, it evokes a time when so many people, possessing neither horse nor carriage, used to walk long distances. Each milestone would be more welcome than the last, all the way to the 1 Mile stone, best of all.
'Timestone' appears to be in use in some computer game, one of those based on a fake mythology. It deserves better!
James.
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Zettel at 01:04 on 17 October 2012
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James
Beeston Hill lies just a couple of miles from West Runton where they are still finding some of the best examples of Mammoths and other prehistoric fossils etc so you may well be right.
As for 'timestone' - well 'meaning is use' as a famous philosopher once said - so perhaps some meanings are more worthwhile than others. Though I shouldn't be the one to claim it.
My wife can't understand when I say that I have no interest in 'history' in the sense of what happened to whom (usually pretty dreadful people) and when: but that I have occasionally an overwhelming sense of 'pastness' in certain places - and Beeston Hill is one. Wells-next-the-sea is one of the most powerfully redolent of the past places I know.
best
Z
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 nickb at 20:29 on 17 October 2012
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I really enjoyed this one too, it was very evocative and a very special birthday present. That day will be cast in her memory forever after this. My sister lives in North Norfolk so I know it a little bit.
I really liked
The changeless calm
of remembrance and
uncluttered peace
of mind sings
in the urgent Norfolk wind |
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it really captures the moment. Lovely.
Nick
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