Wet as brown pebbles elderly faces

parade every day,

jackets held tightly to capped heads,

leading dogs lifting legs

or stooping in course of nature taken,  

ready bags, backs bent

painfully, retrieve to appropriate bins      

passing owners en route      

exchange nods in wind or cold drizzle,

bedraggled but usually  

rain-walking oldsters are glad despite

weather to find exercise

daily in canine care provides outings

never otherwise taken.

Sharing life with a four-pawed friend

shows tail-wagging prone      

to rain-walking gives mutual pleasure    

so those living out remains

of their days might not feel so alone,          

meeting familiar faces.

Ours was perhaps not love,
the sort that demands proof,
fervour which naught can drown,
the passion that willingly lays down
itself for another's approval, no our own
was something written in much lighter tone.

Ours the keenness of separates
easily walking and talking together,
reaching for comfort from a kind hand
when hurts demanded an understanding,
yes ours was desire for friendship's corner,
of choices honoured and respect in full order.

Yet love was there, it grew
with care of each for each,
so in losing you, death too,
of a sort, took life from me.

Oh Word,
whose language can be lily or rose,
rain, dewy cloud, scaly fish
or feathered bird,
whose music trumpets in morning
and plays out night,
orchestrates stars, speaks thunder
and sunshine.
Word, who composes lion, dolphin
or lively stoat,
inscribes wisdom in insect, gorilla
and mountain goat,
writes perfect signatures in each
atomic thing,
whose silent symphony mystifies
with symmetry.


Word, praise to thee who sang Self
into humanity
for looking we find in thy grammar
superb diversity.

I chased this evening
evening's fade in sunset clouds,
silver tin-foiled filigree
tied to grey-as-granite mountains.

Tinted skirts of hazy
daytime's late farewell lit night's
ballooning moon parade
displayed as fire on quiet shoreline.

Invasive scarlet-swathe
hued day's best forgotten noon
when darker stronghold's rain
rolled dust into cascades of gloom.

Drifted with waning sky's
azure came memory's beams,
pain-shot their spotlighting
shadows still haunting my dreams.

Yet I chased tonight
night's demons away by love's
recall when I saw brighter
his star winking at me from above.

Jewelled with
rainbow translucence roll
rain-bead *****
slowly down outer-windows.

Golden-globe
seed pearls, clear watery
glories slide
in uniformed lines, floorward.

Diamonds in
transit they shine and fire
sparkle from
each crystaline orb's inside.

Smallest gems,
if unnoticed, might seem
irrelevant,
joining the fall into sheen.

Caught however
by eyes with keen poetic
insight rain-drop
wonder bequeaths an ode.

For height, girth and spread
they said
there was never one like it.

Weighing a train-load with
oaken coat on
it took every seasonal gale.

but was never stirred.

Winter blasts groaning thru'
**** branches
tore down good fire-wood.

Sagely magnificent

it withstood many decades
of weather behaviour,
sheltered all feather and fur
for generations,
made lovers a hiding place

but now it's not there.

Yet I see a sapling has been
fighting for air
and some say a gone-tree's
ghostly presence
can urge spurts of growth
in its successor.

I sincerely hope this is so
for all who pass by
that one-time great oak
will have to sigh as
its memorable strength will

be mightily missed.

In the pit of the night though cold
is curtained and
fittingly covered is my yearning
for thee, vain
hope decides to unsleep and keep
me wide-eyed
til morning has for certain broken.
When laid low
by memory I find myself clinging
close to thy
pillow and think of that presence
its hollow holds.
At last a slow winning of pale over
grey as dawn's
rosy fingers bid me away, I go to
stay at my
window until tide is high, as this
time it may be
the one that is bringing thee safe
home again.