Poems (of sorts)

 

I'll be incorporating these poems onto abstract canvases - it might just work! Here's a simple version of the idea - essentially an illustration of the poem. The canvases will be more expressive and hand written.

Grey Break

 

Inquisitive whiskers appear from damp burrows,
Twitching and itching for morn’s sunlit warmth,

Floodwaters recede to leave alluvial field,
Richer for sleeping under winter’s silt shield,

Where Kingflashers fish, quarreling coots diss a grebe,
That sways to display, festooned with green weed,

The prodigal sun springs diurnal, 
At grey breaks dawn chorus,
Mistily rising to lay beauty before us.

Ferry Tale

 

Paddles puddling the reedy still waters,
Dripping bright ripples onto blue mirrored skies,
The boatman’s oars creek, in their brassed rowing locks,
As he strains his back toward the danced mayfly rise.

The sentinel heron, silently lifts,
And marks his arrival in languid reproach,
Flapping but unworried, Longshanks, unhurried,
Watchfully signals the boat’s slow approach.

Scooting coots and an embarrassed moorhen,
Whisk themselves off, to the water’s green sedge,
Dragon and Damselflies hover into view,
Vibrantly displaying their competitive edge.

Oars shipped, the bow slips, to bump alongside,
Green rotting timbers exposed by the tide,
Memories awoken of a link now long broken,
With their sibling sodden pilings, away on the far side.

Weaving unnoticed between the twittering classes,
Who don’t raise their eyes from their phones and their glasses,
The old riverman settles, below a now faded photo,
Of a much younger man of the marshland and fen,

An echo in the willow, of an osiers’ world when,
He was the Ferryman. . .
Down at the bottom . . .
Of the gastro pub’s garden.

Ash to Ashes

 

The rot has sapped the supple tree’s strength,
So graindrops shower, and hearts wood splinters,
As the axeman swings to end its winters,

Broken bracken echoes, the caws of the crows,
And, in the act of falling,
The Ash, takes its final boughs,

The Woodsman cuts, sneds and carts,
Along well sodden paths,
To stack and to shed,
The stored sunlight shafts,

Though green, it burns clean,
When kindled spirits alight,
Flickering and lickering,
To tease out the bright,

Beginning to roar,
It wind-sucks the air,
Bellowing deep hearted sunshine,
From summers long passed,

Red and inflamed,
It sears the pan and the hearth,
Heartening and warming,
The care-worn man’s soles,

Looking deep in the range,
The last sparks wink a sign,
To remember the embers,
When spread on the bed,

Ash turns to ashes,
Inspiring spring growth,
The colours of flames,
Given birth from the earth.

 

The Deben

Among lapping wings and flapping waves,
Peewits sift the silting sands,
Searching for the Turnstone’s worm,
Their cries sweep across the salting pans.

A bird catches oysters unawares,
Rippling mussels from his reflection,
Sanderlings standing in pooling light,
Await the tide to change direction.

Wind-blown weeds and reeds hold sway,
Over creeping, sliding, tidal ooze,
Avocets have a few egrets,
Amongst them and the shy curlews.

Tam and tide await the moon,
To raise them from their deep sea bed,
It neaps and tugs at the chart springs,
Their hidden depths cleansed and dredged.

To the Tide Mill’s pulsing life blood,
From those who work and sail and row,
From those who thrive upon your waters,
More power to your Ebb and Flow.