Months: March

In March 2012 I decided to write a sequence of twelve poems about the months - all the poems to be in the same form and each written in the month, each based on a close observation of the natural phenomena around me. All went well until June 2012 when the weather was so atypical I gave up for a couple of months, resuming the sequence in August and finishing in February 2013. Subsequently, the poems for June and July were written in June and July 2013. I propose to post the poems month by month and gather them together as a sequence at the end.

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MARCH

The ache, the ache of existence: winter’s

Stupor irresistibly shaken, old bones
Groan, dry boughs stretch, splitting bark, shedding splinters:
Fecundity ignites in roots and cones.

Dawn light prises sullen sleep; tits and finches

Call greedily, bullying the early growth,
Ignoring winter’s shrunk fodder which pinches
The gut. Lichen bulks up like simmering broth.

Oh, but sinews are stiff, flesh grey, its sap

Barely moistening this slow cold body, galled
By the tug of procreation yet, hands in lap,
Stranded by lethargy, coffined and palled.

The air is lethal, unlocking its grip,

Swelling in warmth to bamboozle the fox
To break cover, the shambling hedgehog to slip
From the kerb, its blood stippling the road like pox.

Reversals are abrupt and perishing;

Viscous fog plasters the sun, throttles crisp shoots;
Puce morning winds curdle the sky, punishing
Shaven cheeks, wan fingers and thought of fruits.

Regardless, the brawn of being explodes;

Every night lithe stems and tendrils seize ground;
Stubborn leaves unwind from a tangle of woads;
Forsythia leaps at the low clouds like yellow sound.

Remorselessly, blood thickens: hide-scarred men

In anguish must forage, fight and build. Again.

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© March 2012