Sisters of the Riverbank

 

I see them in winter
Now the light is lowering the sky
To a glow of late days

Their fingertips: bony, leaves lost
Entwined in solidarity
Holding hands at the river’s edge
Waiting out the rising winter floods

 

I see them in spring
Now the light is lifting the sky
Above the silver frosts

Singing a green song; dancing
Along the racing riverbank
Filling the air with pollen and bees
Waltzing with the breeze

 

I see them in the summer
Now the light is a vast blue echo
Of blazing sunshine

Their limbs laden: green shawls
Draped over slow summer waters
A picnic of sheep and swallows
And soft summer talk

 

I see them in autumn
Now the light is burnishing
Fruit and grain to gold

Sisters of the riverbank
Counting their leaves as they fall
These memories they’ve grown
They share a rich harvest now

 

 

 

The Lime Tree

Under the lime tree

The scent is a sweet perfume

A friend holding my arm

Smiling

Whispering memories in my ear

& I remember a time when

Younger knees

Could run through all the trees

 

Through the apple orchard

Long grass wrapping wet fingers

Around our ankles

Slipping on the windfalls

Turning to wasp cider where they lie

Through the orange orchards

Dry red dust washed from our bare feet

By the chirping cicada of the sprinklers

 

My path, now slow

Winds through the mown avenues

Of old trees saving up for autumn

And the streams & rivers

Are quiet ponds of silver

Where fish dream under waterlilies

And memories, like the clouds above

Are reflections in still water

 

The lime tree sheds no tears

At all the years passing downstream

But fills the air with giddy scent

So I can glide my eyes across the water

And tenderly remember

A time once spent

Running through

Summer orchards

 

Incandescence (Twelve Poems)

I have curated twelve poems from the last three years into a Microsoft Sway presentation, so it can be read on a device or phone. The poems are split onto four seasons to echo either their subject matter or when they were written. The first two, Nowadays and The String bag were written during this period of lockdown.

Incandescence

Twelve Poems

Go to this Sway

I would walk again a Dorset year

I would walk again those spring tides

The unsettling shift of shingle slides

And all the spray in rainbows spun

Against the high tide harbour flung

Dried seaweed crackles underfoot

A cuttlefish, a long lost boot

A razorshell, and old, tarred rope

The beached turtle of an upturned boat

My steps are swamped by the shifting stones

The air pungent with bleached fish bones

And the sea is wild and free and rare

Shaking horses from his hair

I would walk again those summer lanes

With leafy boughs and murmuring streams

And overhead in the whistling sky

A lark song lost to cloudless eyes

White campion, ragged robin, cow parsley and wild garlic

All choke the low brook and wreathe a hedgerow garland

And underfoot the warm, worn tread of stile and chalkstone

Climbing up across the harvested flank of the hillside

To find the view all lost in a late haze

Sweet slumbering landscape on which to gaze

I would walk again those cold autumn cliffs

Towering above the wind drowned waves

Their buttress trees all torn into shapes

While scattered crows shout down the droves

As blackberry pocked and flinty scree

The valleys clamber to the sea

A sheeps wool twist caught on the wire

The seagulls loud lamenting choir

The whip crack cold cutting through my coat

And sea salt burning in my throat

I would walk again those winter fields

The frost cracked branches bare of leaves

And slide across the frozen bow

To where the river slowly flows

Hugged by mist-hung willow trees

Catching dew-strung cobwebs about my knees

Across the bank a rook coughs twice

And beats a path home for the night

And under early stars and greenish sky

The first snowflakes fall and fly

And I am certain standing here

I would walk again a Dorset year