Country Lane

Two brothers I suppose
One quiet, with a white beard
The other far more outgoing

He waves to me
Shouts out
“Hello, good morning, what a nice day”

They had swung a blue twine across the road
More to guide the cows back into the field
Than to act as a serious barrier to traffic

The cows are probably returning from milking
Which means that these two little old men
Have already been up quite some while

Two lives I suppose
One rumbustious, with a laugh
The other more introverted

I smile
Wind down the car window
Breathe in his agricultural grace

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Storm Subsidy

Wind noise
Amplified by the valley
Enriched as it writhes
Among the farm buildings

Rain is in the offing
And the farmers want it
But it may be a day or two
Before the downpour

There is a crystal ‘lace’
Just in front of my face
An optical functionality warning
It happened once before

I am thus reminded of my own frailty
Of the vast vulnerability of humankind
I listen harder to next door's voices
Best hang on to all I can

Spots of rain replace yesterdays frost
On the automobile windscreen
It is time to roll off the dust track
And slide onto the mud slick highway

In the same mysterious way
That the three quarters halo
Appeared before my eyes
It now disappears

Only to leave heaviness
A memory of lost treasures
Which I thrust onto the howls
Of the Katabatic flow

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Art Makes The Man

On the wall
Two prints, limited editions
By Sally Anderson
A local artist perhaps

Both scenes are of Teignmouth
One is of four beach huts
Much as we photographed at Whitby
Or nearer home, in Mablethorpe

The other, a small, numbered, fishing boat
Of the sort suited to a singular oarsman
Similar to the picture captured in St. Ives
Across the deserted harbour beach in June

There is a lightness to Sally's touch
A care, that my son Joseph, captures on film
All around this place, called my life
There are many guides to humanity, and beauty

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Away From Or Towards Contrition

I, I urge to write
As some might urge to draw
As some might urge to paint
As some might even urge to act

It is as if light itself
Is caught up in these words
That all the visions, and reflections
Contain certainty, of a kind

Whereas, in my other world
What some would call the real world
Clarity only flickers, arrives in fits & starts
Each new voice adds a further disparate viewpoint

The chagrin somehow must settle
Though the forces are many and able
And along the way there is to be upset
That is, or so it seems, the nature of change

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Sketched As A Slow Tide

Morning mist
Layered over
Morning sunlight
Beneath the opening morning sky

The first thing I see
Is a single tree
A sentry post
At the head of the distant field

Would that this vision was home
Also to wake here in summer
With leaf and corn up high
And my lady, laying here by my side

The madness of it all
Circulates incessantly
A mind so instantly awake
Contemplating the day ahead's confusion

Toes tingle
Above me I hear footsteps
The lamp shade is scarlet
But the pictures, they are Prussian blue

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