Note: "Noah's splash" in the first stanza is a reference to the old adage "ash before oak we shall have a soak, oak before ash we shall have a splash." I wrote a poem about it - 'Adage' posted on 31 March 2012.
Stare, throstle and wind-fanner are traditional names for the starling, thrush and kestrel.
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The trees are leaved; even the ash
Its many-fingered crown has dressed;
Noah’s splash
Must bide a year. With tipsy cheer
The lopside stare at the bank’s crest
Whistles a leer.
Crazyhead
oak with fat-leaf veils
Enswathes
itself, aglim with sun; In shadows, snails
Aboard the nettles’ spiteful bristles,
Thrush-grabbed are cracked to death among
The throstle jostled thistles.
The
splay-pined larch drops seed from cones
To
fruit in the earth’s spicy pall; With tortured bones,
Christ ascended in His blood’s banner,
Hovers; will He in judgement fall
Like the wind-fanner?
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©
May 2014