Shinrin-Yoku
(森林浴)
By Paul atten Ash
Beneath wild kintsugi skies I harl up through the ancient King’s Wood, bathed in the calm majesty of oak, ash, sweet chestnut, soothing into being, I feel this gold-green seep to the core, the upcast closing in on the West Mendip Way, the horizon a gilded scar. On Wavering Down I fly, a lone raptor rising above the rim of the world, readying over endless sinking planes, deep in the hunt, (the husks of creatures mulching unseen into the moor), to tilt over the brow of the heathland’s lost ways, my heart a flickering star.
Paul atten Ash
Paul atten Ash is the pen name of writer and composer Paul Nash, who lives in Bristol with his family. His work has been published internationally by Bent Key Publishing, Boudicca Press, Ginkgo Prize, International Library of Poetry (ILP), Luain Press, Poetry School, the6ress, Tiny Seed Press, Visual Verse, among others, in numerous journals and anthologies. ‘Vital Signs’ was shortlisted for the Alpine Fellowship Poetry Prize 2023; ‘Eryri’ was shortlisted in the AONB ‘Best Poem of Landscape’ category of the Ginkgo Prize 2021; and ‘Tsunami’ won the ILP International Open Amateur Poetry Contest 1999.
Photo credit: Joyce G
Apricot Press 