Saturday, 9 May 2015

Months: Lyrics: May

The poems for March and April in this series were posted on 14 March and 13 April 2015.
   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