When twilight shadows gently fall
O’er the meadow and dry stone wall
darkening the brook from reflecting day
     creeping into hollows across the way.

Look down the avenue of vaulting ash
whose limbs are on a skyward dash
the perennial dock and brier too
with bluebells make a glorious view.

What of nature’s scarlet and gold
if there is no one there to behold
how can we pass this Bernini show
especially under a bright moon glow.

Soon the first kiss of an eastern sun
will reflect the stream’s steady run
waking the birds and woodland fairy
ushering the cows to the milking dairy.

So until sunbeams drench this view
and the nocturnal bat that flew
over the necropolis spirited away
hiding away from the break of day.

And now, after five decades
under Elizabethan skies,
our friendship reawakens’,
with brotherly embrace …
To give anew the bond,
when as children we grew.

And through the nut-brown
woodland we strolled us two,
ramblers in springtime hue …
Like days of old whence’ yes!
To school we both would go,
pals to form a union new.

And if with tears my carmine
eye’s so tired of this anxiety,
for too soon I know that you
must leave again my friend …
Whisked away on some great
Maria-wind to shores afare.

And so, I must linger now …
In happy memory of our
time together spent as kin.
In the spirited hope, soon we
will embrace the morn’ to walk
the path of everlasting dawn.


Inspired by a recent visit of my friends from Canada ...

Spring forth you old creative mind.
My head familiar with forgotten years,
Where jejune and baron of thought,
For all the many things I’ve seen …
And the good many I have taught.

Draw in words, that picture bold …
The one you so often in parlay said,
‘Of pen far mightier than the sword’,
Like the lawyer’s clever silken thread.
Such beauty in words and cipher code.

Recreate a passing fleeting dream,
Whence war is in the historical past …
And love of common mankind’s light,
Prevails above all thought of strife …
And banish the bullet, bomb and knife

Yea! For we will never forget …
‘Enola Gay’ and that kiss you gave,
The one that will never, never fade away.
From a Superfortress on that fateful day,
In the year of nineteen forty five.

Give way the birth this brand new day
Nurture our planet, it's all we’ve got
Politicians myopia corrected at last
So save for our children a future free
Where war and greed are history.

Winter’s mischief now brought to bare,
by the daffodils’ golden beauty fair …
As sunlight falls on her nodding bells,
for the coming of spring it surely tells.

The crystal snowdrop now ready to sleep,
after its first day from snow did peep …
Her broad green sword to wither and rest,
for throughout winter has stood the test.

Now is the time for merriment gay,
in pasture new lambs frolic and play …
Even the ducklings to water must take,
to become like their father the eiderdrak.

In orchards where the cider apples grow,
trimmed of the evil sucking mistletoe …
Soon will display great blossoms of white,
that scent the air on a warm spring night.

And so,  another fine season passed by,
like the slow heartbeat of old Father time …
even now, the lark-song over my head,
a resounding reminder … no season is dead.

What … no spring
in 2013? So,
see now the emerald
leaf anew
kissed by morning rain
and dew.
Sunlight through the
window pane,
outside the withy
willow cane.
O’ come ye late
spring I pray,
for all we have are
clouds of gray.
No crocus or tulip
In the bed,
winter holds us all
but dead.

I strolled in the fading light of day
By spidery maidenhair coiffured high
Styled by the brush of a westerly wind
Swishing and swaying o’er grass and hay

So when that wind and the pelting rain
Like kith and kin wet again and again
In wiles unknown to common man
It's devious strokes, its unnerving plan

As darkness creeps deeper and deeper
Into the hollows round boles of trees
Painting the hillside greyer and greyer
And sheep huddle close across the leaze

Now the fingers of shadowy branches
Cast ghostly horrors that linger and stay
I sally-forth with long strides reaching
Thinking, just what has happened today

Maybe the morrow will bring a songbird
Were tulip and crocus pleasantly bloom
And from my kitchen window, sunlight
That sweeps away all of winter’s gloom.

So who painted the sky tonight?
In peach and gold, a fiery sight
Clouds touched in a glorious hue
Against a backdrop of robin’s-egg blue

So who touched my heart tonight?
There’s only one person I know right
She’s been with me through and through
The only one could ever be you

So when we stumbled by the olive tree
Where you gave your all to me
Neath’ the shade of that old
Divided bole of the olive’s gold

So three daughters you gave to me
So sweet, as sweet could be
Oh how they grow so very fast
Now they have flown the home at last

So now we are grandparents too
Of seven grandchildren new
They kiss our wrinkled foreheads so
Now we are like the bark of the olive, O’!

The cattle shed is empty now
of shire-horse and milking cow
hens’ ranging free aside, and
geese in the farmyard stride

Down by the quivering brook
in Hawthorn Dene I lingered
listening to the crack-voiced,
‘Cu-uck, cuck’. Cock-Partridge

The falling leaf, a memory now
as bursting buds’ emerge anew
yet, as evening falls penumbras
shadows outline a darker hue

For here in March this spring
the equinox will equal out, as
day and night the same shall be
as it has through all eternity

Yellow daffodils abundant now
like a golden chariot for a king
soon the skylark will return
and above heads begin to sing.

From Siberia the wind came down
It roared and screamed inside my head
Pedestrians shivered with watery eyes
As clouds raced by in alabaster skies

The boughs of oak and ash distorted
Twisting swaying as the wind's voice grew
It howled in tortured madness flaying
Even the pond was a calcareous brew

Hail and sleet scratch the window
The air sylphs anger boils to overflow
The daffodils calyx still tightly bound
Protecting its new golden flower-show

In the courtyard that should be sheltered
Bamboo wind-chimes go ‘clickity-clack’
The turbulence reaches into every corner
As the swirling wind steals an old man's cap

Where will it end, does anyone know?
Like a somnambulist I wandered through
Perhaps the wind will blow its self out
Then the day will be calmed to only a shout.

Bold white-horses gallop the waves
Crash into frills of milky-white foam
Gray-green brine evaporates to blue
Painting the sea in a much softer hue

Gulls aloft on white feathered wings
And cormorants in vigil over the deep
While puffins nest on a high cliff-face
As western winds ruffle waves of lace

Shoals of mackerel swirl the depths
And silver-herrings in a bulging school
Hide from the seabirds' rapacious eyes
Since fish are slippery but not very wise

If only Turner could gaze on this now
With canvas, easel and palette of oils
To capture with brush an amazing view
Far more than my humble verse can do

O’ to observe this magnificent scene
As gilded waves sparkle in vestal light
The undertow of fathoms far, far below
Now die in the sea’s phosphorus glow.

The rooks sitting in a parliament
Atop the tall and swaying trees
Repairing nests from yesteryear
In judgement over lesser things

A host of sparrows lower down
In diurnal light can see the way
Should the rooks mete out sorrow
Or forgiveness this auspicious day?

Steady rain now bleaches boughs
O’er the meadow to overflow
‘T’is but water off a duck’s back,
Such rain on rooks and crow

The church clock-tower has always
Been home to ravens so black
Their unkindness tells a prophecy, if
They leave, a plague will come back

So, give thanks to the lark’s exaltation
For they hail the arrival of spring
And their airy voice above the land
Now gives lift to a pinioned wing.

Walking along a serpentine path
As Chattering sparrows in the bush
Lifted me from sweet reverie
Beyond mossy belts of verdure

So arcadian the setting thus
Bringing a mist unto my eye
My nose began to tingle too
As vernal days were born anew

Nothing vertical growing stout
Saplings bowed from snow and ice
Yet in the treetops a soft wind blew
A nymphean melody so nice       

Winter’s silhouette, now fading fast
So Belvedered this magical view
In splendor a snowdrop droops its head
The story of coming spring to spread

These early flowers vie for light
From a budding canopy overhead
In tawny shade they struggle through
First  to witness the shorter night.

February’s deep in shades of gray
Short the month, and short the day
The woodland veiled in pearly mist
Its droplets on the trees thus kissed

The air perfumed with leaf and loam
Where jaunty breezes lightly moan
Above,  incorporeal hazy cloud
Cover the scene with natures shroud

I watched cock-robin on the edge
Of a wheel-barrow by yonder hedge
With plaintive song he sang to me
As I linger under a chestnut tree

It's still too early to call this spring
Yet speckled thrush on mornings sing
The Caledonian stag aloft his throne
And ptarmigan in heather roam

Bide Ye now as time will show
Spring will bloom with ardent glow
The forest in her emerald best
Discard this veil, O’ winter vest.

Here, where time dances idly
Folding waves upon the shore
Lapping  softly over pebbles
On grains of sand-nothing more

Time and tide wait for no man
The moon’s elliptical pull anew
Twice daily breach the shoreline
Engulf the rocks out of view

The tide is turning, rushing in
Cathartic spray purifies the shore
Ebb and flow now returning
O’er the sand-nothing more

So hail the sun and swelling tide
The twain gave birth to time itself
Yet transitory as wave motion
Your Opel horses softly neighed

Neptune! Roar across the oceans
As you have since time began
Gentler tide after the tempest
Slake the sand-but nothing more.

Bare trees now, clocked in rime.
Fallow  fields, a soft brown hue,
a host of blackbird pecking there,
the pied-magpie squabbling too.

There’s little fare for birds to eat,
a grub unearthed will nicely do.
No seed or nectar sweet to drink.
Thirst quenched on morning dew.

The lake's surface, obsidian glass,
refuses to reflect an evening sky.
Ducks have left the old bank-side,
where clay is caked powder dry.

So I sit and watch the setting sun,
far over the west in sanguine reds.
Soon constellations high will reign.
While people slumber in their beds.

January’s wind comes screaming …
straight through the letter box,
licking wildly at wisps of smoke
from warm red chimney pots.

Jack-frost’s knocking at the door …
painting pictures quite insane,
with deft and grace he freezes lace
all across the windowpane.

Children with their toboggans …
sledge down an old brick lane,
as we did ourselves in childhood
well before time made its stain.

Its with great fondness we …
look back on occasions kind,
to the joy of happy youth
  alas, and those life left behind.

The breath of a silver moon
reflects upon an open shore.
Grains of sand and shingle
washed with the tide once more.

Breakers breach the pier drum
in a storm never seen afore.
Flotsam and foam lifted high
float upon this crashing roar.

Screeching seabirds overhead
on a cliff-shelf by craggy tor.
Let us walk along the bay
my friend and pal once more.

I hold deep sorrow for
  driftwood from fallen trees,
Like discarded limbs of marionettes
now broke, ill at ease.

So taste the sweet and salty air
upon your lips my friend.
Take from life only what you need
  leave only footprints in the sand.

The spirit of December,
softly settles.
       Halloween and All Saints,
now faded and gone.

Time now for merriment …
glistening green holly,
with her ruby-red berries,
mistletoe’s kiss and carol song.

Soon twill’ be Christmas,
bright lights and bunting …
Tree adorned with tinsel,
await a sweet banquet gong.

Pine cones from Scotch pine,
enhance warm mulled wine,
as we all end December,
with hugs , for Auld Lang Syne.