February And Beyond

Two Poems

Woden's-day

Breezy day among dunes and beach again.
Spring decided to lie in all day she said but
Winter is gentle, clean as a bleached bone.
A few hardly half-term families play:
flat-cap man, scruffy coat, olive wellies,
cricket bat, comments loudly on
the 'pitch invasion' as we pass.

Off we go, though, balancing on folly:
zigzags of vertical poles an idiot had done
(on sands that rise and fall at sea's command)
for futile dune defence; but we walk on them.
Lavish toy indeed, and thanks!

After that feat of feet and windmilling arms,
we stroll back to blue lagoon, marshy tide-pool
where passing retriever genius paws
at the sunk stone Brendan lobbed.

I think Spring got up before dusk.
The delicate dots of yellow white on thorns
betoken blossom at the 'b' of their burst.

Fifteen pigeons flee from the oak
synod at the pub.
See the midges dance their evensong,
no Brownian throng but pulsing
in, out, up, down.
                             A blackbird sidles by,
his eye for them or me - this black
phone in my hand, an incrimination?

 

Two Nines*

The ivy round the tree limb dithers
and all those little rufflings of leaves
evergreen, minding their own business,
(and the slight swaying of lilac buds)
pleases me. I want to disconnect.
I want to sigh and be sighed by sounds,
by the fridge pretending to wuther,
by the clock-ticking slowness of it,
head upon hand, wrinkling nose up
at the bleak, unchanging scenery,
right hand largo dance, counting and keys.
I have put away my fishing gear.
I am taking a short holiday
from redemption. What's recycled is
what I see, nothing too portentous,
churning up in leaf and twig dither,
cloud-shapes. Yet, stepping from the chip shop,
sky and sea conjoined with us* and dusk.

....................................

* 18 lines of nine syllables each
*'Us' being I and Joe and friend Vicky from Cambridge...