This latest collection of poems by Surrey-based writer Jeremy Loynes follows on from his poetry pamphlet Turning which was published by Dempsey & Windle in 2018. In Wise as Water we discover similar preoccupations with childhood, family life and an enduring love of the natural world. The photograph on the front cover of a stretch of the River Wey near Godalming, taken by the author, reveals something of the stillness and the depth to be found in his poetry. His work has the capacity to evoke nostalgia but also to offer up thoughts recollected in tranquillity from the standpoint of full-grown maturity. These are quiet poems, ones that describe moments that we can all identify with, but they also offer up a lifetime’s wisdom when viewed in retrospect. The two great influences on his writing, Edward Thomas and Robert Frost, are never far from his pages.

The book is divided into three sections whose titles take the form of an uninterrupted journey: ‘Up the hill’, ‘Gliding soft, as rivers go’ and ‘Ever homewards’. The first section includes some wonderful evocations of an idyllic childhood. In ‘Touch the dream’ he writes:

 

     My Laurie Lee summers seemed endless then -

     as long as the drowsy, heat-soaked afternoons

     as long as the grass nodding in the fields

     as long as the stream in the valley

     as long as the sweep of the hills

     as long as the games we played in the woods,

     never thinking to come home until the light failed.

Other poems in this section capture the play of sunlight on landscape, encouraging remarks that stay with you for ever, the sound of wind roaring through trees. There is humour to be found in ‘Fabrication’ and ‘Identity parade’ and a growing realisation of the adult world and all its responsibilities in ‘Thinking outside the box’ and ‘Money Land’.

The second section comprises five poems dedicated to the poet’s mother. These domestic scenes are finely drawn, no more so than in ‘Mending’:

     You were always mending:

     torn sleeves, ripped jeans, grazed knees and elbows -

     patching us up

     after the playground fight, the reckless fall off the bike.

Loynes develops the poem further  as we move from one stanza to the next:

 

     You were always mending,

     sewing the family back together,

     with careful, neat stitches,

     with calm, kind words - 

     making us whole.

     …

     You were always mending,

     healing arguments;

     after the explosion of temper,

     the awkward silence at the dinner table …

 

In the final section, there is a poem in praise of autumn leaves, memories of the Quantocks, the Mendips and the Malverns, poems in praise of small things and one that especially caught my attention on our changing climate titled ‘English heatwave’, from August 2022:

     On the doorstep, the morning milk

     already sour at seven.

     The day, it seems, has jumped ahead -

     the hour, more like eleven.

     Hammering down, the pounding sun,

     glowering in heaven.

In the final poem, ‘Footnote’, Loynes deploys a light touch to a weighty topic: “Thank you, feet, / for carrying me all this way … now, it seems the time has come to stop - / I must return you to the shop. /The man behind the counter smiles. / He turns and says / It’s been a while …”

In this collection, Loynes has succeeded in celebrating the child within the man, revisiting the scenes of childhood albeit from a different perspective. But it is a return that still manages to capture that free-wheeling spirit of endless days filled with sunlit summers and carefree light.

Jeremy Loynes, Wise as Water, Vole Books, £9.99

Available from the author at jeremy.loynes@btinternet.com