Linger

A summer is spent without haste
And I am left unequal to winter
When fading days linger like phantoms
Burning like a great hope of tomorrow
Look up to the skies for revelation
But do not look to me
I am not equal to these days
That would set the skies ablaze

Late August

Summer

All wonder ebbs away on summers fading

Rolling gloom runs across every vista
Shrinking days, constrict on moisture
The short hope of warmth almost spent
Retreating on seas of ceaseless inclemency
And I see no friendly ships on the horizon
We have not one harbour to shelter within
No place to weigh anchors to buoy the sun
And yet from out the waspish verdanture
Flexes such a mighty growth to the heavens
To reach it not; though it climbs valiantly
And would sting the very sky if it could
Pierce these long, grey washes haunting us
A wet ghoul without; and in the soul within

Veil

Like a lily opening fully to a dawn

White petals flatten on sinuous water
An aesthetic worth without equal
But as of all great dreams of worth
Now comes its inevitable conclusion
The end to riches in verdant climax
And so draw down now summer veil
Close again all the ways of light and ease
That have of late, opened up the night
Lest the day should seem not enough

Dragonfly

The joy to be fearsome dragonfly

Two years under fetid water lie
On summer day awake to air
Ascend a stalk with wind set fair
Split my case and curve outside
Never again to have to hide
I am a regal insect born to reign
Until at last summer shall wane
Weaving and flowing see me fly
This iridescence that hugs the sky
That I must be here now is plain
But why to be born in all this rain

It's not my fault for they just keep on coming

Honey

Rebounding like arrows

Shot from delinquent bow
Deep in the hive of thoughts
Lost words silence creativity
Still all the buzz and hum
Like a frost upon bees
But there is honey in me still
Trapped in a cautious comb
Waiting to be extracted
By life's barbed teeth

Wraith

 

I like summer insomnia

When I wake in the night
Rise like a phantom
And read or write
Become a wraith of words
And my neighbours
Never know a thing
Because it's light outside

Blow

Waiting to be extracted

By life's ironic teeth
What of this small chance?
This breath of thinnest time
Blown by hardness of choices
To unremitting gales of fancy
It conquers neither this nor that
Nor holds, nor stirs to regrets
The hope; I might be better

Money

Euro wouldn't believe it

Yuan could hardly credit it
Sterling is losing its shine
There's a Yen for nostalgia
But it time to get Rial
Financial Dollar drums are here

Revolution

Microscopic or gigantic

The entire universe is revolution
Running elliptical paths,
Round and round
Perpetual spinning orbits
Dances of elegance,
Around heavier centres
Mass slides around mass
And what lies,
At the eventual centre
Is the anti -universe
A cosmic lock unkeyed
To time in reverse
Loops of endless grace
Mirrors and reflectors
Unending surreal perpetuity
Perfection in form
And there you are again
I have found you

Phantom

Can there be a stillness of existence

Unruffled peace upon clear waters
A truce between these warring ideals
And if there were such a place
And it could be somehow be made real
Then I would name it a cruel phantom
And yet still live within it for all my time
And it would always be summer there
Though it would be a mirror of illusion

August 2015

Last

Two years was not lost

I am last to climb
From watery abode
To die and be reborn
Like spent armour
Cast off exuvia
Arise
Stretch out to full
In the welcoming air

I did say I wouldn't mention them again but they keep on coming. The count is now 32 verified Southern Hawker dragonflies this summer from my small pond.

Summer

There is no summer
Not yet
It may come
Bring long elven songs
As we trail the moonlight
Weaving along earthen paths
Carved on slopes of sacred hills
Beneath silken boughs
And we are
Dressed green for dusk
Sendaline robes flowing
And when the song ends
We will sit to gaze upon the aether
From an oaken grove
To wait for the dawn
And see summer has come
Even though it is too late

Blind

Maybe it moves in the dark

Yet say it is not so blind
This thing of utter tenderness
Thrashing around in innocence
Seeking the company of fools
But it is maybe powerless
Has no appetite for change
Seeking solace in unchanging days
Though implosion brings them anyway
It is ever the way of people
Whether we would will it or not
They have no foresight only a kindness
Empathy imagined within superiority
It is but the hopes of a butterfly
Short-lived as summer before frost comes
And no warmth is left to let it survive

Happy Dog

This is what a happy dog looks like

 

 

Dragons and Windows 10

Sunday 2^nd August 2015

 
Another three dragonflies came out of the pond today. In total that makes 29 this year. It's amazing to me. The total count must be over 30 as I bet I missed some yesterday when I didn't visit.

Windows 10 issue is fixed and is proving to be amazing. It's like my Windows phone and PC are seamlessly twinned together; amazing!

Friday 31st July 2015

Another four dragonflies came out of the pond today. In total that makes 26 this year. While this is interesting it is also a test as Windows 10 has just completed and my blog editor seems to have bits missing.

 

Dragons stll be here

Thursday 30^th July 2015

Another six dragonflies came out of the pond today. In total that makes 22 this year. (That I know of.) It is likely there are others as Southern Hawkers are so green they blend in the vegetation very easily. You have probably seen enough dragonflies from me so these will be the last this year. Unless a National Geographic quality shot gets taken.

 

 

Dragons, Rockets and Sky

Tuesday 28^th July 2015

Another four dragonflies came out of the pond today. In total that makes sixteen this year. It was a very cool, grey, rainy day so that puts paid to my theory that they only emerge in good weather and that they all emerge within a day or two of each other. If the weather doesn't improve soon they will wish they had stayed in the water.

 

The other highlight of the day was finding some orchids growing in the field next to the garden. This is the Common Spotted Orchid (so called because of the black patches on its leaves.) It is a small flower but on close-up is a perfectly formed and colourful flower. Common or not, I'll be glad of any orchids I can find around here.

 

 

 

Finally here is a picture of the sky today. Ah, the typical English summer. Black clouds are brewing on the horizon and a dreary drizzle permeates everything. Perfect, see you later; off to sunbathe. Well I am northern and it is almost 60 degrees F.

 

 

 

Enjoy the picture of Darwen Tower. You see where the inspiration for the NASA Apollo programme came from

 

 

 

 

Becalmed

Evolution grows cold in its isolation

It follows now a retreat of fairness
There is no breath left
To let sail the ship of progress
We are moored in our regrets
Becalmed in the harbour of defeat
Furl the sails and drop the iron
There is no fair wind
To take us back out to sea
No more new worlds to inhabit
Save the ones we cannot reach

Midges

Rain falls upon streaming grass

Watery teeth biting upon growth
And slipping between the shades
Vampires of yellowing grassland
Flying on moistures twilight breath
Fearing sun and garlic
Swim in shady oceans of darkness
And a thousand piercing mandibles
Attack abundance as reward
Humanity is their gift of summer
And they nibble upon our softness
With the tenderness of a tickle

Leaves

Facing sun in new spatial quadrant

Gathering brown arms reach out
Landed rain damps wizened skin
Penetrates the deep, green armours
Leaves float lost upon sunless bough
Twist and curl in yellowing rage
Hurl Lammas leaf as last defiance
To the jaundice of autumns approach
The crows leave the hairy crown
Squirrels delve to the heart of the tree
Time comes now to slowing growth

Summer summary

Well it has not been the greatest summer so far from a hot and sunny perspective but the rain had certainly made things grow tall. The Lovage and Gunnera is absolutely massive this year. I stood in the photo of the Lovage and Gunnera to scale it and I am just over 6 foot tall. The trees are growing so fast but already the leaves are limmed in that yellow cast that means summer is passing and the pergola I made in the winter is slowly being covered in clematis.

 

Rabbits have made a big comeback this year and are trying to eat every flower and plant. If the dog damaging the William Shakespeare rose wasn't enough the rabbits have now completed the job and decimated him. Shakespeare will not bloom here this year. 'So a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet and be just as tasty apparently.'

 

The lack of bees and wasps this year is disturbing. Even in previous bad years they have not been so appreciably absent. So to sum up this summer; lots of rabbits and rain and growth, but no bees, butterflies or bathing.

Around the lake are young ducklings and a family  of Cormorants (I always think of the seaside when I see them.) If you look at the picture there are Gulls and Cormorants so you could be forgiven for thinking that it was taken on the coast and not 30 miles inland.

 

Whales

Time freezes growth; suspends its advances

The great clock of summer rises and falls
And another summer settles into past
And so comes light to its declining  
The new moons swallow dusk whole
Swimming upon moist twilight breath
Like celestial whales devouring day
In nights wide oceans of increasing depth
Where we swim back to the longer days
To first days of spring that last evermore

Encryption

 
Hopes are not absolute
Nothing ever was
We seek only the key
To unlock eternity
But each layer of encryption
Broken and unpicked
Releases more unknowns
Boundaries are pushed
Science stands to open door
A guiding light
To a bigger prison
That we built
Time is not ours to enslave
All we may do
Is live the less like heat
And be more like rain
And simply water existence

The garden week

I've been counting dragonflies and frogs this week. I noted eight dragonflies over three days and all of them were southern hawkers. They have emerged almost one month later this year and it is still a wonder to me how they synchronise the event.

The frogs I have seen have all been immature adults of about two thirds of normal size. Don’t know what has happened to all the adults but judging by the lack of frogspawn this year something pretty calamitous. Let's hope there are more breeding pairs next year.

There is something magical about dragonflies. In part it is the mythical name but also its transformation from an initial aquatic state to that of air.  It is a natural form of the mythical 'alchemy' where something base is made to become precious. It is one of the most visible of the summer insect emergences and as it happens around water it is relatively easy to locate them and it lasts for many hours. I have never seen a butterfly emerge from its pupal case; have you, and where would you even look to find one? Nature is a force that captures innocence or rekindles it; even if that innocence is the birth of the most fearsome insect predator flying the July skies.

 

Naked

Terror transfers from water to air

To birth upon the sunlight
Monstrous nymphs climb bulrush
Unfolds, reborn, remade, redesigned
Wings stiffen and fill;
    Like collagen plumped lips
Jewelled chitinous covering deepens;
   Into organic enamelled art nouveau
You were late to wake this year
Metamorphosis is served cold
But no less the magnificent for it