Gogyohka for summer morning

 

sun ripples

through flesh and bone

chasing memories of cold and damp

and the darkness

of a night of no moon

 

cool grass glistens

dew-full

and a chiff chaff

chiff-chaffs quietly

in the sleepy morning hedge

 

here

where the boundaries are green and leafy

and the stream runs lower as heat rises

we stand on the edge

of vertiginous summer

Hay raking

Haymaking was put off for three weeks which is what I wanted, to let all the wildflowers finish and set seed first. The hay is now all raked into an interesting geometrical pattern like a Neolithic temple site, waiting for the baler to come.

This is the west meadow looking south

East meadow looking west. The red and white tape is to cordon off an area where saplings are planted.

The south section looking up towards the house.

The part I like best, the bottoms where the willows are, a section about 20 metres by 200 metres that isn’t mown and is just left to its own devices.

Fierce summer

I wrote this gogyohka this morning and discovered that Paul Miltaru had posted a photograph to accompany it. Thank you, Paul for letting me borrow it.

the wind blows hot and fierce

bringing only dry-leaf rain

to this parched land

fissures gape—listen

you can hear the earth gasp

Half-hidden

Summer

meadow among

long grasses sweet bedstraw

a slight depression barely hid—

hare’s nest.

Heat rises

Heat rises from baked earth,

sighs in whisper of thistledown and butterfly wings,

bathes in gold the green beneath

more and more relentless blue,

seeps in the sweet, ripe smell of bird-pecked figs.

Leaves flutter,

flickering the shadowed sunlight where

a blackbird sings softly, a trio of notes,

listening in vain

for stream babble

to finish the line.

Summer morning

 

Bright morning,

gold-washed, singing

with fluted

orioles,

life pulse, the silent wingbeats

of a grey heron.

Another day

 

Another day of fierce weather brewing,

Trees moan above the meadow-ocean,

Where rippling stalks, seed-heavy sway,

Searching for a sun not there.

Behind the window glass,

We hear the wind break

In a lament

For summer

Drowned in

Rain.

Haiku challenge: Sage & Vine

For Ronovan’s weekly prompt.

 

Sage and thyme sun-bask

while vine drapes a pergola—

summer scented leaves.

Summer evening

 

Twilight, and the owls call,

from the hedge a hare darts,

takes to the lane, white scut jaunty.

Beneath the trees,

bat-fluttering night has fallen,

Venus, Jupiter and Mars

aligned in the blue, the outliers,

while behind, in the turquoise glow,

the stars wait,

and I wait,

for the curtain to rise, the curtain to fall,

spangled and old as time.

Will the night still cast its glitter on these fields

when the hare has gone and the owls are silent,

and the concrete sea has tamed this rebellious corner,

when nothing stirs in the grass so bare,

flowerless and insect-free,

and neatly trimmed as polished nails?

Were I a star,

I would turn my face away

and weep.

Singing grass

It’s hot again and the grass is singing.

The grass is full of crickets,

singing summer songs.

Bent blades of legs spring,

fast as light flickers in the droughty sky.

Parched the grass,

full of movement, a crackled sea,

where the cock-sure jays strut

and reap their origami harvest.