I think it is a Wren,
that is bursting, on the fence
into song,
and is making this morning my own.
I find myself on this new
But travelled road,
The road I am on,
And I am so glad I share it
With that song.
Out of the corner of my eye
The gulls are blown,
Swept up across the sky
I can hear the sea,
and heartbeats
In their cry.
I am free,
I am free at last
I am unafraid of the past
Because I hear the Wren
And I saw the droplets
Freeze again
And again, at last
At last.
in a neighbours garden
the kids unfurl the paddling pool,
all its edges stuck from winter resting
last years breath tightened up the inner.
it breaks open like an alien,
origami, of an unknown thing.
clouds come and go, for moments
sunlight pushes forward shadows.
and the grass turns brown
in it’s thirst.
soon where there is just the knobbled crust
there will be beans. And now sparrows like balls
wrestle in the dust. Freeing feathers
of mites and so enjoying their flight,
to the gutter and the dwarf willow
tree.
where soon they will call out
but from where they cannot be seen.
two great tits met on the brushed out fur of my dog.
they gently exchanged a beakfull,
two tiny fragile skulls swapped kisses.
unchallenged,
they met eye to eye.
in a single wing
their lives entwined,
for a moment
with mine
We poured three fingers of whisky,
It was dawn
Too early for me to be drinking.
But I couldn’t stop laughing
Somehow, I nearly died
And I never realised
How much I would miss you.
I loved climbing back over the wall,
Mossy and eggs hatched in the frog
-you at my shoulder, laughing too.
Happy months,
For all that I have known,
I miss the frozen pies, lawn-ward
Measuring out the pills.
So I am pouring myself three fingers of whisky
And I will watch the stars
Circle,
When I fall down in the garden.
On the shore I made impressions
In all directions,
Of my feet,
and of my hands.
Gently tied the sands up in knots
Bladder wrack stifled the rocks
and we slid down the sides.
Yet I’ve never been to the sea
In only these my fanciful dreams
Of the under, and the above.
Terns and gulls learn to live without love.
Cast off the casings we have grown
Fond but ignorant of,
Then as I put my head beneath
I learn to breathe.
Under the still illusion of morning
Crept two mis-matched lovers,
Tiny in the ways their little hands touched
And met in a fingered embrace.
The streetlight wept it’s bright cone
Upon their inward faces
Turned toward each other
Blunting the freezing wind.
As if unseen they almost skipped
In their joyfulness
That planted its own seed in me
And became fragrant in mind.
To the unknown areas of darkness
I continued, kindly hidden,
Somehow knowing that no shadow
Would fall wayward across their path.
In such a slow way,
As an approaching wave,
The years have slowly settled on my face.
Beyond the pane
The blue tits came to claim,
Their tiny prize.
I see through my reflection,
My sorry ghost smile,
And feel the tears
Well up in my eyes.
They built tunnels, and then became
Thick veins that carried them like blood
Into the deep Earth like rats,
Where in silence they shivered,
And were brave.
Bravery had never felt so heavy
Never heavier than this,
This flimsy shield.
Nor than the greater expectations
Of the roaming, roaring,
Expanding
Nations above.
Then swimming on, through their brothers eyes
Or wading in on a beach of bones and shells,
They built tunnels.
Tunnels turning worm casts full grown,
To find the surface flat
And, please, sunlight
O!,sunlight.
They built tunnels that stretched on for years
Tired grooves on a ’45,
Those were good years to be alive.
Those that flourished at the end of the excavation,
When in silence they had
Shivered,
And were brave.
It will be lovely then,
When our frozen thickets come,
Sweetly cold,
And daylight enters through
Us like a knife.
Gradually the silence will come,
And our lithe tender minds will cool.
Witness,
Unto acceptance
As a silver wind consumes us.
It will be lovely then.
Turning heads we
May feel we have found god,
Or just our tiny shivering frames
Like so many stripped pines
Aching for knowledge,
Distant and lost in the whiteout.
Forever frozen,
Puny and afraid
Redundant.
Then
At last we will know
Stillness.
Wind sings as I walk along the empty lanes,
Tiny highways mown, keeping trim the grass grown.
The smoke from a nearby fire sends out a trail
Like a wounded, plummeting, ‘plane.
Heifers carve their flanks along the lazy wires,
That link one space to another for miles, and miles.
Hooked on it, moments, caught in fur and briar,
Daylight breeds soft shadows along the aisles.
Trinkets and blooms rest gently among the stones,
The hands long gone that came to lay them close.
Softly cycling voices never see this place I roam,
Horse Chestnut, in your arms I find home.