Winter song

Blue as the veils
of flute and clarinet
this cold sky

washed clear
singing with the bells of winter
yellow-feathered

the rhythm called
by hoofbeat
and the woodpecker’s cry

misted pearl
the snorting breath
of russet running things

my hands clap
to the crisp crack of leaves
beneath my tread.

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The wind blows

The wind blew and blows still,
showering the field with golden leaves,
moaning like a lost train in the unlit dark.

Stove hums in flame tongue,
incensed with wood smoke,
where cats curl.

We talk in soft voices,
unwilling to disturb the humming, flame-tongued air
or the music of the stars.

Weight of the world

The weight of every pebble tossed
is feet dragging through tough-rooted stalks
clouds on my shoulders

shadows lie beneath each stone
wheeling bird wings
in the depths of drought fissures

and the sharp breeze blows cold
barbed as a bramble cane
where the last fruits rot.

After the shoot

No moon the night no sun the day
between grass and cloud is water light
colours faded old postcard grey.

No sound except the soughing trees
beneath their boughs the caged birds lick
their wounds and huddle waiting

for time to tick and tock
in the pock of raindrops
for the numbing ache of fear and foodlessness

to stop.

At the end of the rain

At the end of the rain
is the timid sound
of the earth drinking

and the sudden fluttering
and whistling
as trees shed birds

in a spray of trembling drops
to shake the cold
from their wings.

Haiku for figs

black figs swell
skin-splitting hanging
beneath broad leaves

how do they ripen
burst in sweetness wasp-drawing
and make no sound?

purple and green
such luscious colours dripping
with honey-sun

Poems for now

nothing in this
afternoon louder than the
angry sparrowhawk

stream trickles
almost-dry aflutter with
thirsty wood pigeons

and sun slants
in golden shafts through tired
boughs where warblers wait

for ripe figs
and the whipsnake
to leave

Eggshell blue

 

 

blue as the shell of a bird’s egg

curved smoother than pebbles

in a riverbed

 

untroubled by clouds

watersmoke

redolent of ocean spray

 

sky arcs

an eggbubble

protective casing

 

stretches above about behind

and beyond is the black

the deep and the dark

 

where cats’ eyes of stars

stare blandly at the bird’s egg blue shell

silent as an empty nest.

Dark heat

 

The dark is singing and whirring

and whining with insect legs

and the dry crunch of footsteps on the grass.

 

No cool breeze

a hot wind blows

from a distant furnace place

 

dark drifts in the waving tree fronds

where birds sleep

dreaming of cool water running.

Another element

Many fingered like the sea

a heaving mass beneath the coping of the sky

sopping up the clarity with spongy paws

 

it wrings sweat from the veiled air

puddled in vague yellow unclear green

dripping dry and crisp beneath the tread

 

this heat slows the workings of the world

like syrup in the wheels and cogs

silencing even the irritable crows.