Four hundred years I stood  
a mighty oak of vast and stretching limbs  
until I fell, and then I lay,  
the home of scurrying beetles that you see today,
an old maid with a cap of spider lace
quite peaceful and content within my resting place

How many dreams,
how many wild and uncompleted schemes,
how many words
and the infant ghosts of poems I will never write
do I leave on my pillow at the end of every night

Depression,
a dark and empty place to fall
a tube of silent closing walls
which sneak on in and wrap you tight
they **** the air and drink the light
to leave you crushed in body and soul
a resident of the rabbit-hole

The woman in the wheelchair
still finds you funny although her laugh is silent
it is lost in shadow and smoke
hid beneath the cloak
of her stroke,
you can tell her a joke
she will probably get it
although the speaker may have gone
her sense of humour carries on

What am I ?
not wind nor rain
nor endless rolling sky,
I am not sea
or green and falling land
not trees nor beach
nor endless shifting sand,
not sun, not moon, not stars
so help me now,
to understand
if am fish or beast,
or calling bird which sings
which part am I
or maybe I am all these things,
as for why I came to be
or when or what or even how
I do not know
but call me nature
just for now

Today I saw a daffodil
Wordsworth's flower o'er vale and hill
this blossom had come early
a fool in the winter chill,
January's rebel
this stubborn yellow child
who gave a leafy finger
because March is far too mild

Today I will hang my winter curtains
thick and soft as a cat's full belly,
December throw your gauntlet
full blast the rain, the wind can roar
they will not step inside my door
for every sound becomes a purr
once I have donned my seasonal fur