The poems for March, April, May, June and July in this sequence were posted on 24 February 2014, 21 March, 20 April, 24 May and 20 June.
------------
The
hay is baled; the blackbird’s liquid call
Moistens
the meadows; like earthenware the sky
Projects
raw heat and soused with dust the tall
Hollyhock
totters, though the thistle, sly,
Shrugs
defiance, flaunting its purple bonnet.
Blackspot
swarms on the rose leaves; lavender
Protests
with scent like a sumptuous sonnet,
But
among roots slugs gorge juicy provender.
Ruthless,
the sky blackens – cats go to ground;
Thunder
like granite cracking, lightning stark
As
judgement, scourge with rain-hard wind the drowned
Buddleia,
gangling in the abandoned park.
Later,
squirrels daredevil in the high trees
Seeking
berries. Breakneck growth has reached stasis;
Pale,
reluctant men are squeamish to seize
The
year’s last chance for some anabasis.
Instead,
the harvest. Combines clatter in the fields
Engulfing
barley and rapeseed. Rabbits
Squat,
stupefied by the heat-dust which builds
Over
the slaughter, shroud to man’s habits.
After
the heat, the evening silence is long;
Jigsaw
pieces of pigeon-grey cloud drift
Breathlessly.
A nervy spider’s web among
Tight-leaved
privets displays a jackdaw’s gift –
A
feather. Fireweed strips its seed heads to husk,
Purple
in sidings in the humid slow dusk.
====================
© August 2012
