Wrath

Then lay down your white wrath

Upon the tender and industrious
Freeze feet and wings and flowers
Undo the hard won honey reserves
The precious eggs,
Cold in abandoned nests
Hide the buried nuts
From the waking squirrel
Do your worst
But tis a wasted spite
We will wait for you to weaken
And enjoy the sun all the more
As we rise into the summer
And you are long gone
And the honey shall flow again
Like a river of gold
From the snow-white comb

Patience

From roost set deep within frozen bush

Birds emerge and break the deathly hush
And I walk upon the cracking grass
And wait for the hoary frost to pass
And as night abates under wondrous sun
I see the new growth that is now undone
The cold hours are gone but not without cost
For all that had thrived is dead and lost
And if we thought that summer had come
We usurped winter and thought to have won
So a message is now sent to remind us fast
Anything we value may not always last
Nature always shall hold the final sway
And all we may do is our best each day

Shakespeare 400 years on

Four hundred years is too little a time

To understand the man, his life, his rhyme
Nothing now survives of his flowing hand
For all his ability he bequeathed unplanned
For very soon after he met his untimely ends
The first folio was published by two of his friends
It is no random collection by dutiful clerks
For only love could have completed the works
And love is seen in each parchment leaf
For each page was complied in utter grief
400 years slip by but time does not dim
The importance of his words that lie within
And its prominence doth not ever abate
Shakespeare rest quietly in your revered state
And as into the ages you now gently sleep
Supreme master of words you left in our keep
We know little of your life and its ends
But in Heminges and Condell you had friends
For in comedy, tragedy, sonnet and song
They executed perfectly your elegant tongue
And nothing is certain though all scholars guess
In the future your words will persist to impress

Queue

No God has made any of us wretched

Life will always create each of us fair
And only man finds a way to undo it
The spectre of ghostly collaboration talks
But influence should not crow its privilege
For what is this you call unfortunate?
The consequence of our own choices
Partiality was never delivered so visibly
The unveiled threat so easily perceptible
But allies are as allies do
Even when,
We may be put to the back of the queue
Democracy is our meddlesome mistress
It is not yours or Europe's to teach us

Sphere

Across the cosmos
Chaotic patterns form
Numbers rise and fall
Compute to a perfection
Before they dissolve in disarray
And all the while
Its spheres rotate ceaselessly
In vast and timeless spaces
The universe cares nothing
For us as a species alone
Its only concern is time
And enough space and distance
To impose its order upon

Execution

And while the future pauses

I turn to devour the past
For in a glimmer of wisdom
Comes this thought
My days are now made
Not ever to fail in desire
But only in their intent
In dreams that now grey
All my execution of hope
Fades ever towards illusion
And the prideful damage of greed
May now seek a ruin elsewhere
For I shall stay here now
A little more the humbler
To feel alive only in the sun
Among the scents of life
That spring delivers sweetly
Among the now rising days

Taking a ride

Don't know what was going on here with a toad taking a ride on a frog. Maybe a case of mistaken identity - very strange!!

  

 

 

This is the first barn owl I have seen around here and it was hunting in the day. Not very good picture though

 

Ascending

The spring princess must make her gown

From a cloth of green and yellow renown
And all the while, the bitter white witch
The ogre of winter, tries to unpick each stitch
But growth triumphs and all is fashioned new
For every stitch she can undo, spring sews two
Till at last her dress is fair and complete
And into dawn she walks and takes her seat
And winter dismayed calls for one last frost
But spring is now ascending and all is lost
And so dissolves the last of winter's chill
She concedes defeat and obeys spring's will

Shrinkwrapped lamb

 

The first lambs are here in the local fields. They put little plastic jackets on them for the first few days to keep them warm and dry. It is a joy to watch them skipping around but sad to think of their eventual future.

 

 

Electric Picture Palace Mussoorie

And the piano played

In the Electric Picture Palace Mussoorie
Black and white keys rose and fell
And told the oldest story of all
With players made the poorer by it
Save in the culmination of creation
And they are all gone now
Into peace and dust and memory
Footprints upon remaining memories
One foot east and one foot west
A prince, a falcon and a photo
But if my blood runs true
It will be enough
Though you think I imagine it
The mirror tells me a different story
And I have no dishonour
I can walk among the memories
As a princeling
Long bereft of a kingdom

Random

From the shallow seams of memory

We scribble down random thoughts
But the deeper we dig into despair
Then a much richer ore is the reward.
But no script of immortality will result
One day all of it will be hieroglyphics
Our accounts unfolded within a cipher
That time will take and blow into curiosity
But never no more a living memory
For our words are powerful only;
While they can be still read

Chaos

There is a great peace upon a garden

When we leave its beard untrimmed

For a chaos trumps the adoring order

And in such untidy places we dream

Wait silent among the glorious growth

And like a strong vine upon a tree

We may weave and flow around purpose

Merge into the very landscape

And so hidden, we may then watch,

For such a contentment to come to us

 

 

Hill

And perhaps it is coincidence you say

The bees do not awake to join the fray
There are still none present upon my hill
No buzzing wings penetrate daffodil
And where they are I have no clue
But we are the poorer for it, that is true
And clouds build to mountains of grey
Brood and scatter rain upon the day
And without sound of droning bee
Spring is lessened for you and me

Spring Spider

Out it now comes from winters repose

Though where it goes only heaven knows
Perhaps to search for mate, or food, or moth
Traversing the ceiling with undulating sloth
It creeps and strokes like eight-fingered hand
And upon my head I pray it does not land
For now that I know it prowls overhead
Not a wink of sleep shall I have upon my bed

Shatter

Like a dream

I rise and fall
Drifting on a breeze
Then I settle
But I am only
The slightest glass
That shatters on touch
And I am unmade
Upon you

Panama Papers

All is for gain in the offshore bazaar

And to all these journalist a hoorah
They've raised the pressure a few bar
Uncovered a very murky brouhaha
Reaching from Washington to Zanzibar
Another huge tax avoiding cash reservoir
Codenamed 'The Papers of Panama'

Silence

Though the sun caresses us
Strokes us like we are Gods

And daffodils nod and swoon
Yellow silks on windy streams
The proud flags of spring fluttering
Yet still the bees do not come
To visit these fine north orchids
The world remains silent today
And absence makes a heart fonder
Even as the remains of day decay
And the badgers exit earthy setts
To wander under twinkling stars
Caring nothing for the sunshine  
That brought forth not one bee

Rush

Yet so sweet does the moment fly
When we have a want of company
In our needy desire of warmth
It comes readily upon aged bones
Waiting in entombed expectation
In this sepulchre elect we name house
Rush not the farewell to winter
It is only the affectionate pilgrim
That would have us love him
If he were not so icy to the touch
So he stays the itinerant by the door
The beggar we must not admit
An unwashed, raggedy bandit of summer
And we shall forgo all his overtures
Refuse his invitations of affection
We shall sit by the fire till he leaves
Become a watchman upon the shadows
Gazing only back to the far off days
Where there was no cold upon us
In a refreshment of summers excesses
Till wake one morning and see him gone
And taken the grey and lonely winter clouds
That brooded long above our sandstone hives
And the world ever renews it vow to life
Now winter has finished its lonely vigil
And left an arching spring rainbow as a gift