It's territory shared

It’s territory shared

Soaking sun in silence by the pool                                                                                            

late September, no tractors yet,

the grapes this year delayed,

I’m hearing Yeats, bean rows, honey-hives

and golden apples of the sun

in luscious Irish lilt.

And Hopkins too

as brindled, dappled, couple-coloured

moths and butterflies dance  by

or pause for me to name: Painted Lady, Red (not Orange) Underwing.

Now all the air is busy-

Pied Flycatchers fly sudden upward, then just as sudden drop.

Entire family here, extended, surely not one brood

and this, the boundary of our land,

distinctly theirs also.

It’s territory shared.

So all the way from Africa

to ours/ their summer place

no satnav, year on year unerring

their returning, timeless rhythm

poetry.

29th September 2013, Hounoux. 

Noli Timere

Noli Timere

I take my tea to the circle

right on the garden’s edge

dwelling on Seamus Heaney, poet constantly,

though blood and tears ran with the rain

spattered walls and horror

ruled in his land

I sip my tea as the Marin blows

rattling the figs’ dry leaves.

Did he write in the anguish to let it out,

to ease the heart’s pounding pain

or hot as his anger boiled,

or out of respect, marking the loss

a wail as the bagpipes lament?

Noli timere

his last words, a text to comfort his wife

and me, with my tea,

clutched on the curving bench

raising evermore thanks for his courage and gift

to deal with the dark, to mine from unspeakable depths;

for poetry’s beacon, holding the line

a marker to grasp when the flood’s in spate

and horror has the upper hand.

7th September 2013, Hounoux