February And Beyond

This is my father's superb poem, 'February'. Not mine. I am PJ M7 He was DJ (M7) My poems follow this.

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February

As a soft owl-time before rising
so fields, hedges are plumage-lined
in every centimetre
leaf by green leaf springing.

Last years dead rankness waving
wizened to a softness
clutters the prickling blades.

And there is no tormenting,
neither storm nor withering,
frenzy nor upshooting
in the undoing of death.

Hazels unspiral catkins -
copper engraving in the aconite sun
fragmented over a millenium.

No old man's inner eye
shall see this tranquility,
no resolution, no recalling;
only a discomfort of sharp frosts
opens against death my stupid eye
and no second chancing.

Neither intuition nor reason sees it,
hope nor despair;
no sensation, feeling or profit in it.
If you were there and only if you looked
you saw it.

At the sun's margin stopped,
soft and brown unfolding,
green on the still mind's edge
or frost melting,
hedges and fields before spring.

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DJ (M7) - This poem circa 1979