Wednesday 23 December 2015

On A Hot August Day

The woods are bright with oaks’ new lammas growth,
   Cheering the swart, tight-fingered yew;
Wood wasps hover in soaks of sun like broth, 
   And tapping trunks for grubs the back-blue 
Nuthatch whistles. Tall ash sway in the breeze,  
Their crowns threshing like wrack on the sky’s seas;
   Dust bakes in the heat, tart as rue.

Beyond, the meadow barley blondly waves
   And the yoke-yellow trefoil glows;  
Woodchip crickets raspingly toil at lathes
   Danced at by cabbage-whites which pose
Like paint on the purple vetch. At the lake
Phosphorus dragonflies flash like light’s flake  
   Scorned by a heron in a doze. 

In eden-truce a pirate magpie sips
   The mud-thick water; cuckoos high 
In a copse pant meekly; a starling flips
   Path dust to cool its wings: a cry
From a child snubbed the muse on this hot day; 
Tooth and claw belied, the birds, it seemed to say, 
   Were heat-absolved like you and I.

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© September 2013







 
 

Saturday 12 December 2015

Months: Lyrics: December

The poems for March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October and November in this series were posted on 14 March, 13 April, 9 May, 15 June, 11 July, 8 August, 11 September, 9 October and 14 November 2015.
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   The morning air flares on the skin, 
   The sky is high and iceberg cold,
   The crimson sun, a too-close world,
Looms over rooftops that the day begin. 

   An ice-lump frost like frozen milk
   Plasters the grass and rigid oaks, 
A crow cracks the silence with rattling croaks; 
   Sun-touched, the frost glistens like silk.

   A split-pale fence begins to steam,
The sun’s heat creeping on its topmost bar;
   Like incense drifting near and far   
   The frost exhales a breath-thin stream.

Wet-black the fence; and now the grass and oaks
   Fume cloudily in the sun’s light;  
   Winter’s colours emerge from white –
   Ash-greens and dunnage like turned cloaks.

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© December 2014