Love has come Again

At a halt on our path
a field-scape lies.
The sky downcasts
a beige blankness
tucked into the horizon.
It is a scene, still of movement.

Then in an abrupt cloak of berries
the sudden plumage of a pheasant
erupts from its hedgerow covert,
a most vivid proclamation
of the season’s palette.

In these silent wolds winter’s wheat
has already sprung its green blade
from the buried grain . . .
only now to wait,
to wait in the cold earth
at our feet, to wait, then flower.

Love is Come Again  the carol sings.

This is nature’s promise,
and yet hidden from sight
the story tells itself
again. And yet again
we pause and wonder
at its telling . . .
even as the light fails us
and a darkness falls
against this frigid land.




La Serenissima*

There it was, high on an outer wall
of *San Giovanni Battista in Bragora;
the church where Vivaldi was baptised.

Ruskin would surely have brought
suo scala a pioli to come close
and so sketch this tableau in relief
of Mary, her son and the Magi three.

But with il telebiettivo
its detail becomes forever mine,
and so is pinned during Advent
to my studio notice-board:

a ****** purissimo,
un bambino divine,
my Christmas gift
from La Serenissima.

I see small puppies and kittens, oh my!
With their small button noses and with their
look of curiosity in the eyes
of their beholder as they woof and purr.

They are always there for you in a time
of need. I look as you lay in my lap
wishing that you could still be in your prime.
It seemed to pass in a single cold snap,

from puppy to dog, from kitten to cat.
Oh, how have you grown as these stresses past.
You acted as big bad wolves and large rats,
but I still loved you. Days are just downcasts

without you at my side. But, you can sleep
for all eternity without a peep.