"springful" poems
It was my thirtieth year to heaven
Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
And the mussel pooled and the heron
Priested shore
The morning beckon
With water praying and call of seagull and rook
And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall
Myself to set foot
That second
In the still sleeping town and set forth.
My birthday began with the water-
Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
Above the farms and the white horses
And I rose
In rainy autumn
And walked abroad in a shower of all my days.
High tide and the heron dived when I took the road
Over the border
And the gates
Of the town closed as the town awoke.
A springful of larks in a rolling
Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling
Blackbirds and the sun of October
Summery
On the hill's shoulder,
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
Come in the morning where I wandered and listened
To the rain wringing
Wind blow cold
In the wood faraway under me.
Pale rain over the dwindling harbour
And over the sea wet church the size of a snail
With its horns through mist and the castle
Brown as owls
But all the gardens
Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales
Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.
There could I marvel
My birthday
Away but the weather turned around.
It turned away from the blithe country
And down the other air and the blue altered sky
Streamed again a wonder of summer
With apples
Pears and red currants
And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's
Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother
Through the parables
Of sun light
And the legends of the green chapels
And the twice told fields of infancy
That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.
These were the woods the river and sea
Where a boy
In the listening
Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy
To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.
And the mystery
Sang alive
Still in the water and singingbirds.
And there could I marvel my birthday
Away but the weather turned around. And the true
Joy of the long dead child sang burning
In the sun.
It was my thirtieth
Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon
Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.
O may my heart's truth
Still be sung
On this high hill in a year's turning.
12.2k
I
I see everyday of my life spread
Before me like an orchard in bloom.
Each branch of tree, every bush and leaf,
A memory for me to consume.
In summer, when fruit is rich,
I tread the path for fruit to pick,
Indulging in the springful life:
The ripened fruit bringing delight.
But with each bite I enjoy
Something is destroyed.
Soon the spoils will reach their end.
II
I feel her touch,
Hands soft from love,
Stroking me,
Providing ease,
Like sliding through
Horizon’s stretch—
To a place where we
Would meet again.
But these moments fade
In solstice’s blaze,
Where the summers past
are lost.
Flowers wilt, their colours dampen,
Trees break on the orchard path.
What remains from winter’s wrath,
Where one has used so much land?
III
The sodden marsh engulfs.
The land itself falls.
The somme-like pit pulls
Into its hefty haul.
But past the glint of glossy eyes,
Lies a world where seeds survive.
We fail to see past lives once lead,
The growth thickening within our heads:
The weeds unkempt, vines in droves,
The bushes tangled with roses, broke,
So concerned for orchards gone;
We never made another one.
‘Cause the trees will grow in due time.
The fruit will ripen with more life.
An Eden will grow to replace
An age, to show, that we can change.
Oct 21, 2018
Oct 21, 2018 at 5:31 PM UTC