Before the too-high heat

 

Before the too-high heat 

Now in the morning’s  cool, before the too-high heat

mosquito buzz

the casement window’s wide 

so volume’s high, the chorus loud 

lead voice out and proud 

the blackcap

his complicated warble strong and sweet. 

Then higher pitched but clear above him

the tiny serin’s notes 

and interwoven harmony, the blackbird’s well-known tune. 

Now of course a sparrow’s tedious chirp 

and underneath a wood pigeon’s steady coo

or better still, improved, the turtle dove

and once, astonishing, a trill of flute from Golden Oriole! 

All in the morning’s cool

a daily treat, identified by Merlin

become my friends, their voices I can name 

singing the soundtrack 

while the landscape’s still and silent 

before the day, the busy-ness and buzz

the world’s intrusion 

before the too-high heat. 

Monday 16th June 2025, Hounoux for Clare 

London to Brighton

 London to Brighton 

There’s a life a life, a glimpse of a life 

in a terrace a row where the railway runs 

and weary I wonder and dream of the lives 

for more than a century here 

lining the railway, planting their plots 

a tree grown as tall as the roof 

stories in storeys 

always an ear to the train 

the rumble and roll 

no longer the steam 

rattling over the points. 

The life, the life, in a pattern it runs 

express to the seaside, the airport, the south 

timetables, schedules, circadian rhythms 

the daily the weekly unceasing it flows 

and watching the window, a film all unspooling 

city to seaside, allotments and parks, suburbs and fields 

I dream of the lives all lining the railway 

and out of the pen the black ink is flowing 

disgorging the poem in lines and in  verses 

then into the station, a sigh and a silence 

a full-stop complete at the end of the line. 

April 9th 2025 , London to Brighton train

Psyche, I read

Psyche, I read 

Psyche, I read, 

in Greek’s a soul and equally 

a butterfly 

so I remember once I walked astonished 

through a cloud in technicolour 

swirling and spinning by the Indian Ocean 

some large as my hand, settling, unsettling 

like a cinematic scene

magical as Oz. 

Patamouchi in Tamil

Can you hear them float and fly? 

And mariposa, papillon, or German

schmetterling. 

Always a word to set them free

out of the dull and earthbound 

from caterpillar, chrysalis unfurling 

smoothed and elegant 

in perfect symmetry, the silent souls 

ephemeral as beauty as they flutter 

butterfly. 

April 13th 2025 Hounoux 

Today I watch the wind

 Today I watch the wind 

Today I watch the wind jostling the long boughs 

ends curled like Christmas trees, Aladdin’s shoes 

ceaseless the fling

this wind is king. 

In fly the birds, claws clinging as they’re swinging 

the hyperactive blue tit, coal tit, acrobatic crew 

out of the blue. 

That glorious glow, backlit, 

impossible to paint, cerulean

silenced to a sough now 

relief and respite

picture window/ window picture 

lovely through the glass. 

April 3rd 2025 Hounoux 

Once upon a March day

 

Fifteen orchestras she said

Fifteen orchestras she said 

Fifteen orchestras, she said 

in hell

the testament of a cellist, saved by her art

still, eighty years on, surviving 

the beauty of a Christmas rose, white hellebore 

in rocky winter bed

or convolvulus on a bombsite 

truth and beauty intertwined, prevailing 

life saved in the evil, the squalor 

in hell. 

27th January 2025 Hounoux . In honour of Anita Lasker. 

As the season flames

As the season flames 

The world outside, a picture in the window 

shines glorious golds, show-casing smears 

unpolished 

for nothing’s perfect. 

Spiders for example are moving in for autumn 

colonising on tip-toes 

then crafting daily webs 

now hung about with diamonds. 

And field mice too are everywhere in numbers 

dashing and darting 

tiny deceivers glimpsed then gone 

our home now theirs, apparently 

winter quarters chosen. 

October’s first cool nights 

and russets orange reds 

send signals loud as Morse 

It’s time to hunker 

as the season flames in dying fall 

unleaving 

loveliest imperfection. 

20th October 2024, Hounoux