A Pot Of Crab-Apple Jelly

It shines

through the glass lightly,

amber-rose,

quietly translucent;

gathering in

all of the dancing

sun-spiced apple-lanterns

for the dark days;

all of the trembling, sugared blossoms

brushed by the whispering bee;

all of the timid buds of courage,

the traceried, misted green.

For He is the alpha and the omega;

and it shall be so.

        

(February, 1980)

Prayer From A Harvest Festival - Floor Level

Me, Lord, me; no beauty,

warty, son of the soil;

wall-eyed and grubby -

I must admit I’m grubby -

not much to look at,

rather round;

but honest, Lord, I’m honest.

No fancy clothes,

can’t dress me up

to be what I am not.

I speak my mind

plainly;

I don’t compromise.

“He shall fill the hungry with good things”.

O.K., Lord, try me;

any way I’ll nourish them;

they’ll love me for it

(sorry; you, Lord, you);

Lord, you created me.

Love me, use me, please;

not a lily of the field, I know;

only a spud.

But please, Lord.

     

(February, 1980)

Attitudes

The dog sprawls

watchful, paws and legs

outflung

over (beseeching?) my chair.

                 And goes!

The cat curls

round her independence

in the firm centre

of my chair.

                 And stays!

  

(February, 1980)

Birth And Death (Two Haikus)

Birth

Fresh page,

the pen already driving history

across her fairness.

Death

Death comes as the end,

as the beginning;

the end of the beginning....

(February, 1980)

March Snowstorm

March came in too eager;

strained and sheeted now, lashed

beneath the charcoal-tented sky he waits.

Snow on snow; dredging steady

ashes to ashes, shrouding now

the flickering warmth of lambs,

the draggled ewes -

anxious in grey wool;

the daffodil trumpets are stopped with forgetfulness;

till wild comes a fan of sunlight,

out soars a shaft of bird-song,

piercing

light....

            

(March, 1980)

The Drought Breaks (2)

At last they come:

the clouds

low-whelming over the asking corn,

sustaining in slim, cool hands the beseeching flowers,

netting the weary cow parsley with shining hope,

salving the smarting hills with showers of contentment....

(May, 1980)

Courage (Haiku)

Courage lies in accepting

the unacceptable

with dignity.

    

(March 1980)

First Apple Buds (Haiku)

See my green-pearled star-bursts

shining

on the dawn-grey tiptoe twigs -

almost.

(March, 1980)

Two Poets (Clerihew)

Though his morals were fishy

Byron is dishy;

Scott

is not.

(May, 1980)

Note:     This one was for the John Masefield High

School, Lower VI A-level English group.

In Memoriam

I was a night-walker,

Hair in a tangle of rain

And a lightness round my feet.

The earth dark, warm and softly wet.

He was journeying too,

Probing the secret air,

Dragging a silvered courage

Over each unequal stone;

Proceeding in silence.

And now

He is not.

For all those climbing whorls

Of polished sepia, spiralled cream,

Yes, all his crisp defences

Lie

Smashed, fragmented....

Tomorrow I shall see him

Dead,

Staining my path.

Tonight

I am so sorry,

Snail.

(September, 1980)