party morning
and we have ascribed to you
your inapprehensible walking
except by lucky guess between
these hedgerows
in languages so far distorted
among dragonflies and flies
we are closed distance
as those houses missing
after the excavation
A morning sky blares a raucous anthem.
Bluejays, Magpies and crows
have gathered to defeat the songbirds.
I look East for any signs of massed auks.
The air is dancing, but it's a crazy dance,
a stamping clamor akin to frontline fever.
A battle is coming, the shock troops
are rattling spears in the hedgerows,
fieldmice are digging new trenches
under old roots.
Look! The storm gulls are here,
and they are bringing the ocean with them.
Blakean ghosts' boasts..frollicking in rollicking
Rolling hillock hosts..ripe shenanigans..perry toasts
Believing in hefty heaving heroes
Hallowed harbingers..halcyon hedgerows
Harbouring tranches of branches..ferry very merry berries
Majestic mosaic montage barge of balletic
Incandescent flowers..weaving wherries
Showering prophetic kaleidoscopic poetic dreams
Streams through towering mesmeric green tunnels
Full to the gunnels..reams of sheens teem..flowing funnels
Bestowing.. glowing transcendent beams gleam kinetic
Luminescent aesthetic barrage..overpowering iridescent fluorescent flowering
Every single one of Mother nature's tendrils tingle
Mingle..saluting seasonal succour..mooting rebooting from fruiting..pukka
Birds in the cherry trees twittering their song
Big fat bumblebees hum merrily along
Crickets in the hedgerows chirping all together
A perfect day in the month of May
With perfect springtime weather.
She still phones, though not to me.
I imagine her small-talking,
see her walking to the local shops with a mutual friend
who sometimes phones me just to ask
if she has phoned yet?
Birds chatter on wires,
groundhogs go to bed deep under the hedgerows,
I hear them snoring
just like she remembers me snoring in her ear.
We speak often like that -
no backchat.
Quilt of rough and smooth
stitched together by hedgerows
stained by light and shade
Spring is painted the most vibrant yellow
Magical blooms unfurl to our delight
After harsh winter months, all is mellow
Nature created such beautiful sight.
Along hedgerows, daffodils unfold
Yellow primroses raise their dainty head
Yonder on hillside gorse glowing so gold
Tapestry woven of magical thread.
For love of spring is imbued in us all
Temperate atmosphere gives pure delight
Mesmerised entirely in love we fall
Like lovers entwined on a perfect night.
Spring painted in so many yellow shades
Our hearts are full at enthralling cascade.
The wind has a grip on the land.
Penny Eyes, the straw man on the field cross
has broken into a crooked smile,
his hands flutter like dying crow wings.
Trees whip the sky.
Blisters appear in the iced-over field furrows.
Under the wide rooted hedgerows
the white fingers of the yet to be seen,
dream of being green.
A rouged sky paints a clown's face,
on a dawn rising moon.
The open earth, that not closed in
by brooding trees,
but is as spread-out acres,
where the hush and harken
darken eyes and ears,
to surmise with a blind expectancy,
Yonder fields of tall, unhooded grass,
rattle their spines and tremble,
before an unseen avalanche of doubts.
Stiff hedgerows crouch
over darkly webbed roots,
fears huddle under thin skins,
a subdued ground waits to be found.
It comes,
the storm inside the stillness
blooms, still unseen
its tumult as yet a far stretch.
All the cup-shaped,
all the cupped and hollowed,
will be gagged and drowned,
by a plunging sky --- one not yet nigh.
Too late,
a squirrel barks a warning.
A teacup of terror has been spilled,
unbowed heads unwillingly turn,
wondering -
wherefore, to where?
Soft shadow slippers
Shuffled through the hedgerows
Aimlessly ramble
Sample the texture
Of twilights tenor
Lean against
Still warm bark
Dip their toes
In the ripple-less lea
Fill the cups
Of cooling roses
With a silent chill
Then pale
As darkness
Consumes them
Leaving
Only the scent
Of passing
My soul seems to be hidden today.
Where can it conceal itself?
I thought it was always with me,
Roaming the endless paths
That clatter the corridors of my mind,
coursing through my arteries and veins,
invading all essential organs
that keeps me alive all day.
Maybe it flew away
Like some mad eagle that lost its way!
I will not search for it.
It will return when it feels
There is a need for it.
My feet follow tracks unknown
Oblivious of time and space.
I meet old friends and strangers,
I pass on,
I do not recognise their mien.
I thread through paths lined
With rampant dark green ferns,
I slush through shallow muddy pools,
I rest below the copious hedgerows.
Down in the valley cows are milked,
Geese cackle and cocks crow,
Cats copulate in peace.
Fragrance of new-cut hay
Makes my nostrils flare.
Smoke billows from the chimney
Of an old cottage near the farm.
Should I invite myself,
Betake a country hearty meal?
I am welcome
Urged to taste the home-brewed beer
Or the new fermented cheese.
I feel a kind of peace.
Perhaps my soul is back
Or perhaps it's the beer or the cheese.
Who can say?
is it just my age?
increasingly I value
winter’s soft decay
those last few leaves
revealing tree branches
decorated with lichen
rays of the low sun
penetrating morning mist
shining in hoar frost
in the hedgerows
remnants of summer’s blooms
ragged robin and old man’s beard
gulls and crows picking
at the dead fields, harbingers
of a time of lack
oak leaves are the last
to fall, pallid brown, clinging
to summer’s false hopes
even at midday
mist persists, permeating
tired fields, sad bare woods
a time of quiet
decay and rebirth: I watch
disconsolately
An Indian summer
decamps, marches South
like a defeated army.
Coats are pulled out of closets,
cars winterized.
Wizards in long white robes
hunt the moans of castaway witches.
Autumn memories lure cats away,
but they soon return to the fireplace,
to stretch-out the longer hours.
Babies are coddled closer,
the sky goes blank,
amnesia deleting its colors.
There are omens born on chill winds,
sparrows go mute
in the frosty hedgerows.
November takes off its high-hat
revealing a bald dome,
when you go out alone,
you feel its gelid marrow
hitchhiking its way
through creaking bones.
The utter splendour of garden life
Encompassed by nature, calm and serene
A sanctuary away from all that strife
What a pleasure it has been!
Wondrous sounds competing all around
With eyes closed, I listen in
Standing barefoot upon grassy ground
A blissful deluge has me in a spin
A lonely droplet descends from above
Splash! A pond ripples of a glistening fluid
Hidden within a small meadow grove
A droplet lost in a swirling multitude
Ponds, hedgerows, and colourful meadows
An array of habitats, for one and all
The river sparkles as it flows
A falcon glides, I hear his call
Duelling dragonflies have set the scene
Blooms of yellow, blue, and vibrant lime
And all the hues found in between
A magical moment captured in time
This enchanting space touched the hearts of many
A slice of heaven for all who stood within
A defining place along my spiritual journey
It resonates deep beneath my skin
A Doe and deer come to my backyard.
its quite a common sight
in leafy suburbia.
The hunters search out the
deep woods to shoot at them.
They are in no danger here
except for the growling menace
of minor roads.
They are unphased,
by me at my door,
both stare at me for a long minute.
Then the fawn strays
too far from its mother.
Mother and Bambi
disappear into
a light industrial unit
just a stone’s throw away.
That’s just how it is round here,
the tall hedgerows
hide both the deer
and the humming machinery,
that unobserved
make the hunters guns.
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