I told the swifts they’d got it wrong
I watched them glide and dip and play
The sky was of the richest hue
Without a the slightest hint of grey

But slowly as the day wore on
The clouds began to blot the light
And doubts began to fill my head
Could the swifts have got it right?

Of course they had, why even ask
No confusion in their feathery heads
The clues were plain, the signs were clear
The rain would come, as soon as said

And so it did, with lightening flash
With thunderous roar and constant pound
With drops the size of apricots
To slake the tired and parch-ed ground.

We mustn’t doubt our fellow creatures
They feel things that we’d never sense
Watch for signs and **** an ear
And bow to Nature’s sapience.


Stuart Williamson     August 2016     ©

‘The Immensity’   by Stuart Williamson

“La Inmensidad”
Salvador’s words
Vast burgeoning watery place
Myriads of small creatures tumbling to the sands
Spent waves already fighting back against the tide
Cemetery walls crumbled in its wake
The bones of long dead fishermen once again felt the air

And a ***, the work of human hands
Striped with red around its rim
Cradled within a larger bowl
Exposed for us, and all to see
Left for a thousand years or more
To be held with pleasure once again.

THE SUIT                  


This costume of an older me
Does not sit well upon my frame
Each stage with attending uncertainty
Not the suit in which I came

Remembering childhood’s exotic clothes
Allowing oneself the luxury
Recalling pleasures not the woes
To bask in simple reverie

Favourite secret places gone
Quarry, pond and places dark
Different children jump my stones
Their arrows find a different mark

Paths and houses, muted, still
I stand alone amongst my friends
Black against white, a bird stares back
At this version of my earlier self

The memory still astounds me now
For no reason that is plain to tell
A sense of wonder, deep content
My earlier, suit it fit me well


Stuart Williamson         Estero, Feb. 2015 ©

The Palette Poised

The palette poised
As if…….. some archaic ballroom
Oiled and smoothed by years of feint and flourish
Marks of previous jigs and gambols
Colors placed in magic sequence
Waiting for to dance and mingle

Stuart Williamson       2015 ©