Druids once we were

Druids once we were

You say now

Reaching back

From later years, become a bard

So bound to search for spirit-life

And fairies, apparently, lambent lurking

Every tree or wayside flower

You see now

Reaching back

Where playground plants in cracks

Coped with tarmac, tiny plot

For pineapple Mayweed creeping

Playthings we thought, threading head to tail
Like daisy chains and plantain catapults

Nought else grew

Except behind the school a scrubby lane

We walked controlled in crocodiles

And sticky buds were there

Miss cut them for the classroom

Nature table

And elsewhere land was waste or common

Wilderness in parcels

Before the roads and houses tentacled and spread

So even with a mother quick to fret

Yet long-rope rambles were allowed

Excursions unsupervised

In search of (seasonally) sticklebacks, tadpoles

Rose hips, blackberries, conkers, crabs

Grass to whistle, shells

So we remarked the months

Their provender, ‘bread and cheese' hawthorn leaves

And best of all, for me, catkins

Lambs’ tails

Signalling the spring

You know now

You see how

Relatively long-rope , we, wandering free

Knew those fairy spirits everywhere

Daily friends

You talked to birds

Still do, encourage geckos

Respond to tree-frogs

Make your hand a bridge

For cricket floundering in the pool

I see

Your straight hair, bright

Centre-parted

Fixed with grips

Brown legs in ankle-socks

Running

And into focus, sharply, from the blur

Me too, like you

Nature’s children, druids

Once we were

18th September 2011, Hounoux, for Clare with love

This day, today

This day, today

If I could paint this day, today
Or sing it in a song, bind it
In a book between the covers
Or on film, in photograph
Model it in clay
Stitch it onto fabric
Dance it, write a symphony
This day, today
I would
The still, the sun
Sweet scent of smoke
White wires across the blue
Sky lit luminous
The still, just one
Pale rose, low whisper
Breeze, unbending cypress trees
Martins’ sudden swoosh
Faint across the foothills
Tractor harvesting
And me the frog mechanical
Languid in the pool
Lovely liquid dappled blue golds green
Luscious sheen

From deep red dawning day, today
It bursts and brims
As laughter lights the soul
Gilded gift
Ephemeral Mayfly one-day fly
Perfection come this day

14th September 2011, Hounoux

Danced in the spaces

Danced in the spaces

This this she said

The  dart and the  dip and the dive

Swift and swallow  streaming, look, arrived

Or the sudden swirl in the sky

Bee-eater fly-past churr-churr, on high

Or patter and bob, small wren

Two steps  stop then, ear-cocked

This this the jizz she said

A very essence imprint, how to be

From hatchling all life long

Their song

Their going with the flow, glorious

Their thing, jizz and jing, spread wide the wing

So watch and wait

The dancer tiptoe, still

Then flown

Unleashed the artist lost in oils, transcending

Or guitarist, magic on the strings,

Jizz and jing

Watch and wait, danced in the spaces

Swum in the sky

The wonder and secret, song of the soul

Binding and winding, making us whole

Very essence jizz,  dazzled bling

Yearned for, sweetest, glorious thing

6th September 2011, Hounoux,