Wonder-full WonderDusk

I’d never read any of my own poetry to an audience before, so to do so before the 500 people gathered at Donkey Green, Box Hill, to celebrate the Surrey Hills’ landscape and woodlands at the WonderDusk event, was truly wonderful.

Organised by Surrey Hills Arts and the National Trust, WonderDusk gifts a range of artistic treats to attendees, including puppetry, choir, art installations, theatre, dance and poetry, all in celebration of our local environment. My poem ‘Nine Thousand’ is a tribute to dark skies and a combination of my passions for creative writing, astronomy and nature. Reading it under the red lantern-lit Mother Tree to climax the event is an experience I will never forget.

The evening began with dancers, holding symbolic birds, welcoming us to the woods, where three large groups were led along ever darker paths by lantern holding guides. We passed poets corner, where three of my Surrey poet colleagues read wonderful pieces communicating our relationship with trees. Next, closing my eyes as I listened to a group singing a beautiful praise of the oak in their camp of tree stumps, I transported myself back to a time when our respect for nature was greater, our relationship with it more symbiotic. Further along the path, intricate art installations, lit from below, gave time for reflection. As natural light began to fade, the real magic began - first as a group of young performers in white, wrapped in lights, performed a mysterious ‘life of trees’ piece, followed by a group singing and dancing with lights to celebrate our ‘mother’ trees.

As the groups returned to Donkey Green a wonderful choir sang loud as a mass murmuration of birds, enacted by participants, flocked around them and then descended to the mother tree where I waited for silence then began by poem. Looking first to the sky and then to the gathered old trees, I finally felt the energy of humanity before me and began my reading in the darkness. My poem is below. I hope you enjoy it.