As lizards bake on brick

As lizards bake on brick

All the hot and blue sky day
As lizards bake on brick
And busy birds are in and out of crack and cranny
Creeper, on parenting imperative
Chick-chick the noisy chorus ceaseless
Dawn to dusk
All the hot and blue sky day
The bee-loud butterfly
Flutter by, dip and dancing day
Too hot for a dog day
I hide inside
Shade and shutter
Brush and paint on paper poised
As careful petals curl
Unfurl one upon the other
Blossoms blooming on the page
A splash of rose in scarlet,
Leaves, the sun-baked stone
Fragment torn, weather-worn
A poem on a wall.

May 29th 2011, Hounoux, for Gill and the enchanted Bordebasse, with thanks

Dancing with Mr Blue

Dancing with Mr Blue

In the glory of the sunrise
Will you walk a while with me
Will we fly across the spider’s web
And never break a thread
Or drink the scent of roses
With the bee on honey quest
Will we catch the pulse and rhythm
Of the jasmine in the breeze
Dip and dazzle in the sunlight
As the butterflies show dance
In kaleidoscopic sunrise
Will we wander hand in hand
Take the magic of the moment
As we feel the planet turn
Tilt our faces with the sunflowers
To the newly-minted day
And be glad we shared the secret
Glimpse of heaven, rainbow’s end?

18th May 2011, Hounoux. 'Eternity is not in the future but in those bits of the present which make like worth living' Rabbi Lionel Blue

Yesterday we studied stones

Yesterday we studied stones

Today we came the slow way home
Our journey took a while
For we’d to stop at every downpipe
Every terraced house
To consider Incy Wincy’s climb
And his subsequent descent, in rainy downpour
Would he hurt himself at the final,
Falling, or come out smiling?
You wondered aloud, gauging each waterspout
The climbing up and the washing out
From a weary spider’s viewpoint, stance
You squatting on your haunches, peering
To assess

Similarly yesterday we studied stones
For there are many specimens
Heaped on the Brighton shore
To be dug and poured into buckets
Selected for size or colour, roundness
Piled into rock castles
Smoothed and rubbed and plopped
One by one, in the sea

How glad I am to slow and stop
To amble at your pace
To stand in a three -year -old’s shoes
To wonder why it is Tuesday
And whether a bee can smile
Poet and scientist, lost in the now
The what granny, why granny, how?

26th April 2007, Hanover, Brighton, for my little Luca with love