Like summer rain

 Like summer rain 

Early awake as the dawn is pinking

peach in streaks in the lovely light 

hurrah for the gentler warmth I’m thinking 

instead of the sweat of the high sun’s might

all earth’s creatures frazzled, shrinking 

impossible day and tropical night 

my soul’s sapped and sinking sinking 

fretting the future, the planet’s plight. 

But in the dear day’s glamorous dawning

artist tinting the window pane

I find the poet’s ‘New every morning’

Take heart she says, begin again 

and salve for the fevered frights and warnings 

her words of hope like summer rain

30th July 2022, Hounoux, on reading Susan Coolidge, ‘New every morning’ 

Sounding the alarm

 Sounding the alarm 

There’s a warning loud in the air today 

garden slowly crisping curled, ungreening 

where the sun’s ferocious flattening the large-leaved 

hydrangeas, Christmas rose gasping

even the sages struggling, the sparrows silenced 

cacophony not after all ceaseless 

when the thermometer’s dreadfully high

the heatwave graphics fire-engine red 

barely a merciful breeze 

all will sapped 

cicada chorus buzzing louder louder 

sounding the alarm 

July 13th 2022,Hounoux. 

A spell to bind me

 

A spell to bind me 

From under the spread of the olive tree

its sturdy limbs’ fine canopy 

the world reduced to greens and blues 

skies and oceans cooler hues 

I thought of Marvell’s luscious ode

of green on green in mystic mode 

annihilating, as he wrote, all that’s made 

to a green thought in a green shade 

and understood the poet’s meaning 

when all the world’s a dream of greening. 

Between the earth and thrush egg sky 

heedless poised to float or fly 

midsummer bliss a solstice gift 

a spell to bind me as I drift 

July 3rd 2022, Hounoux, on reading Marvell and Charles Causely