Season long,
from shoots to shouts
to last parade then cut of spade
all mark season’s trade.
As light misleads, oh now I see
- means more to me than just
a change in nature’s song
these leaves - leave nothing gone,
sailing though their colours fade
hailing crowds with all they had or made
they urge me now to keep my trust,
nothing’s right, and nothing’s wrong
this circle never doubles,
these spirits never stray,
and in my heart
they stay.

Folding
like mountains
more than stone
jumping sunset
silvered Firth
chasing Oyster skies
to edge of Loch
and on to Glen
as shadows fade
I follow
them.

Below the ripple sway
polished dark like night
above, a silver stream
time lapsed rushing by
smooth, as melting ice
hello says the curling sky
pressed like frosted bacolite
in love? the elders dream
through moonlust eyes
and truth like sifted rice
so low, now winter days
relished not as if by right
a shove sleeved scream
rhyme hatched and rushing by
and proud as wish-tree ties
and still in awe of morning rise
am I.

Oh they wondered what the wind was for
scattering kernels upon dark floors
raising arms as fronds in breeze
calling troops of last frost seeds
rising now above their needs
they wonder -
have they sinned before?
shattered deeds perhaps, and maybe less
but more than the click of knees
cornered bent for scattered creed
locked and chasing seasons tease
and here now, hearing wind
feeling whispering, teasing,
wind.

Go where white horses lay
on green blanket down
hear young men tell tales
of old Marlborough town.

Run where country girls stay
we’re resting our heels
near riverbank’s bend
with spin in our reels.

Skip past bullrush and sway
where hill winds come
alive to our ways
in fields we roam,

And this, becomes our home.

Seeds
need rain
like you and I
disolving soil and
seeping down to earth
once and through again
we go like icey broth
when winter chimes
in want of some reprise
we wake, and nourish all
feel each kernel, every husk
writhe and double
push the clay and loam
grasp the psalm of storms
and later, balm of stars
at dusk.
We are rain soaked
you and I
and into the footings we fall
ringing our brittle song
it calms and tells of times
renewed, like seeds
and rain
like you,
and I.

By ushered dawn
I’ll whisper long,
By winds since gone
I’ll sigh.

By fountains bold
I’ll summon hold,
By ancient song
I’ll try.

By stars above
I’ll call on love,
By mountains tall
I’ll cry;

By limbs of oak,
By none things spoke,
By thread of Nature’s cloak,
I now invoke.

Much more,
Than I.

Gather in the sun
Make the most
Before it’s done
Watch ripples
One last time
See the flowerings
Nature’s won
Meditate on how
Summer’s changed
The evening show
And even birdsong
Before season’s reel
And greying days
We all will know
Farewell now
To kind and warm
Before the storm
Before the spike
Of needle wind
And open souls
transformed.

Let us be caressed
like refreshed lovers,
underneath fingertip rain.
Let us lie below the sky
and feel the wake up calls,
falling like soft arrows -
into valleys of tired skin.
Let us smile amid the downpour.
Let us swim in rivers formed.
It is Summer and now
we should welcome rain.

It’s the colour she wears
and I see her everywhere.
I see her in trees
and in hillside shows,
I see her on grassy mounds
on bankside river flow.
She throws a shawl upon the land
and playss her verdant hand.
It’s the colour she wears
and I see her everywhere.

Let the
water flow
down stoney slope
through hillslip mud,
breaching kid built dams
over oldwash twigs.
Let it filter,
let it purify,
let it flow.

Shame you missed the rainbow
I really wanted you to see,
it was like the edge
of a butterfly wing
magnified and stretched
across the sky.
Something about it
seemed so powerful,
so magical. I even believed
that on this strange day
it would curl from me
to you.

It’s time to re-arrange the coats and shoes,
and it troubles us there are some we never use.
Especially now, we’re on the cusp of sunny days,
gone should be Wellies and brolly stand ways.
Soon, it’ll be time for birdsong chime
and jaunts, and hushed marvelling at the climb.
We’ll sit at the top of the hill with beer instead of rain,
watch people flowering in their saunter up the lane.
A time for sleep and softkissed breeze,
evening pored with dreams that race like bees.
And on towards the half-eyed chase of dawn,
we’ll tip-toe over dewsoaked lawns.

I was a black hearted storm,
Giant in the crack of sky.
Telling all to cower and hide
Like sodden lads shivering
Below cracked windowsills
And hidings from drip and drain.

I sent them daggers of rain
From a sudden underworld,
Sliced the air into fragments
Of stilled and hushed awe,
Undoing the buckle and brace
Of comfortable lives.

Then, I scratched the skies.
Gave them electric glint
Connected ground and cloud
To signal my amusement
And spun them like reels
Reaching end of spool !

Above, I laughed on.
Enjoying the drama
Of this pretence
Over these scurried ants
Seeking shelter’s vanity
Below the leaves that blow.

But then, I felt subdued
And muted in intent.
I saw the ground below
In circle of season’s clash,
Sensed the cries of broken corn
And their angled stalks in bow.

Did I feel remorse?
Did my hesitation signal
Limitation of my force?
I stopped, and sniffed
The air and earth below -
All fine with harvest’s scent.

Not years, or months - this season leap
Like skimmed stones spun on cleaving lakes
Not days, or hours - that lover’s keep
Or driftwood sprites helmed in secret flow.
Not time, just feelings - like ocean’s bones
Kissing moon-drenched span and bow.
All these, measures of a fate we share
Born of waters we must come to know.

The shoots are out and blood feels flow
Of inner tide and undertow. The sun,
Alert to season’s bow, pulls chord
Of cloud-winged fanfare call,
To signal start of this -
A most extraordinary
Of shows.

The sky is taunting us
Spreading its muddy fleece
Smothering the shoots and spurs
That call to sun.
One minute overjoyed
In the glow of spring
But then, snatched -
Like a mistaken banquet guest.
Why, oh why
this grinding pause?
This reckoning of season sums
Beyond patient warm and blue
Greying the clarity of hue -
Our cravings for rebirthed sun
Like cries from fallen souls
With weathered flags and so much need.
So much wanting, so much desire.
All, waiting to start again.

We listen
The trees urge us to
For noise in the noise
For voices crying out
And solitary melodies
Resting on their hanging limbs
Resting in their bellied boughs
Resting at the roots of the hill.
Sounds of tumbling leaves
On temple stone and sandcastles
And avatars and StumbleBlogs
Changing the space around us
All for contentment’s sake.
The only thing time gives;
To build, to create, to generate -
The singers not the song
Bringing hope when we listen
In this flooded wood.

I am seeing less,
but more than Summer’s tired flare
On litmus sky above tapered mound
and rough-torn tissue paper hill.
I fall below the errant wind,
under etched-mist tears big as Oaks
that sense call rippled nature’s bell
and threaded cloud in wonder’s curl.
I feel something growing in this land
See it glow with change and knowing -
It is a time of flow and rise.
These sudden sparks of joy
are freaking me.

With kindly arms, layered in cold
a child scatters bread across water folds.
His arch of energy watched skirmishly
through broken reed-bed end of summer’s hold.
He knows; here they lie, the open-mouthed
battle weary hopes that ache for different tales,
meniscus stirred by ripples in the distant manifold.

To be the first to gather from happenstance
to forget the dragging ballast of concern,
to be ahead in the race to grow untethered.
This is what is craved a thousandfold.

From a distance, the amused child looks on
enjoying the animated turbulence,
thrilled with these ripples of influence.
Watching, wanting, willing -
inquisitive in his scatter.
He urges on this swim of souls
and sees the weakest being bold.

All know
blue ivory cover,
and veined ghosts
of storm and rain.
And blood rush wind
conducting orchestras
of leaves, like thread
from endless tapestry.
All towards the slow pulse
glow of every turning moon -
the very things we see
and share.

Born under greendown farmer’s scar,
but now amongst the pinched ones -
a child of earth to man-made stone
is walking through the grey.

In cities armour, there we are
pedestrian stiff-coat bones.
Sometimes, no mirth
for what we have become,
or knowledge dare not known,
the emptiness we help to hone.

O’ child of grass-seed skies
when will you help us seek,
to gaze renewed - in curiousity,
in splendour of wonder’s
perfect way?

It is nearly time
for green to graphite grey parade,
from summer’s baton pass
to wet edged days and shadow snatch.
The last gasp vivid glow,
a final flare from nature’s lamps -
the scurry from the light of day,
all by autumn’s tired call.

Gone are the tender strokes of sun,
the arms of bloom upon my back -
that harden very glue of me.
Steel wool clouds are on the way,
to stars and scent of pepper meadow
in midnight swell of owl hoot,
smudging glow with alluminium sky.

I smell the damp mortar return,
feel the subtle fibres of change,
hear the crisp night saw of curtains
sucked though the window frame,
and know - this is the first kiss
and tell of winter’s wail.

Near one foot on Wiseman’s Bridge
the bosky dance of trees to teal sea.
shot-slewed on the grey incline
down toward the quartzite bed.
Joyful, feeling the soft tongued
ardent lick of bridled sun,
running down the scallop edge
of the valley, but still seeing -
all through crossthread eye.

I urge you, heed the pull of tide!
Surrender to the progenies of her push and pull
across clenched toes and red arched backs -
brushing us like fleets of soft milk necklaces.
Contemplate the glassy shivers she brings
the backward gasp of her shuddered roll,
rippling through the very bones of you.
Wonderful are her splinter-glinted shoals,
the diving loop of current’s teeth and wave,
moving bed and pushing sandbank mound.
Over and over she invites our stay -
let us be joyous in the swim.

Before sleep,
I heard the tinkering of rain
and it made me wonder.

Where did the first raindrop fall?

On garden, chalk or tarmac path?
In quiet kinship with the ocean?
Bouncing off the shoes of drunken love?
Ahead the fray of cloudburst,
succumbed in gravity of night?

Before, somewhere.

You MUST have felt, or seen, or heard.
The velocity of a solitary liquid crown,
shattering diamond-like in impact tears.
The lead in winter’s swarm.

What in Heaven is nature doing now?
Her summer leaves are turning autumn brown
Some say it must be salted wind that blows
Such clement air for Aphid’s frothy crown.
But cause for rusted windburn on the green
Prefers the pause and muse of pagan wells
For grey futures not yet known or seen
Are heard like peeled notes from fractured bells.
She knows the leavened denature of ways
That bond the who we are - to how we’ve been
Staring oil blunted in stunted gaze
At slow decay of wonder’s stay unseen.
And so we blank the signals that she sends.
Complacency, denies our season’s end.

A fishball is
rotating round
the scrapes of
my luncheon
but only one
winner is in the
swim.

His shoalsnap
on the turn
of hunger’s tide
jumps at the sun
through surface
shroud.

I think of us
with all the
to and fro
of being, and
our own chase
for instinct’s
ride.

But for now
it is time to go -
the wasps are
out.

Before sky and below sea
a sharded tower - echo stilled
frozen clouds blown by cold
distilled whispers of season’s change.

Meltwater from this calm innocent
with no intent to deceive beyond
the quiet halo of noble modesty
and the glacial calves of beginning.

Growling like a lost white giant caught
in agitated seltzer of watered blue
an ice-eyed pinnacle scours flow
and grinds the floor of the world.

She craves the body of the whole.

There is a spike of light within the shoal
Kaleidoscope corralled by ocean haul
Left flighted in the right hand swarm
Through co-ordinates unparalleled.
There is genius gold in the gravel bed
Silk patched to old corduroy of earth
Glow worm lit on abandoned track
Mesmerising strayed souls.
Darling voiced amongst the Starlings
You are the earliest, sweetest kiss
Of rain and storm to fall upon
the borders of this flock.

You shine where we are dulled.

Now you’ve planted flowers
you’ll have to watch them grow.
Earthbound spirits in the border
of patient ground, sown in craving
sun with gentle rain to nurture.

Nature’s growing pains find solace
in your care of wonder’s veins
and shoots of tenacious youth,
audacious too, find climb to bloom
through cold wax clay.

So tend loam and budding spears
pierce winter’s call to arms of time.
Watch over the flowers that you grow,
energised by noble reaching limbs
together - in beauty’s rise.

Ah, what fascination!

It grows stronger.
Purified, closer to the source.
No sediment, just clarity.
Every turn of the sun,
adding puposeful gravity,
to its calibrated flow.
Gently guided, filtering slow.
Watchful of energy refined,
like a wild forest stream,
cutting through mountains.
Our love distilled.

O glory!
Says the sky.
As it reaches to circle,
luminous arms around
green satin down and
poplar spire.
A parliament of trees
awaits its governence -
all nature’s capilliaries
aligned to embrace
the touch of origin.
The chorus lungs of oak
or elm, even hedgerow root
in readiness to sing -
to praise with ardour free,
be joyful in verdancy.
But soldied corn of man
does not hear such
ancient melodies.
Of scratched horizon
and of grey grip of our clan,
or bread and blood and
landscape chalkhill carved,
the sky says
nothing.