Setting Up, Setting Out

The audition is passed

As the breeze turns into a wind

This summer is not yet to its last

All sinned thoughts are to be rescinded

To sit among tree and varnished wood

With cobwebs and drainpipe looking on

I thought to buy, thought yes I should

Here to write, to put right all that’s gone wrong

Saturday morning

Yes, freedom is here once more

Sat, at this delightful diminutive desk

Views over Trinity

Then on to those faraway

Imagined sand-strip shores

Angels will be seen riding

Along the big skies next

A new pencil will be procured

To satisfy the writer’s perceived significance

Though truly the need for that is next to naught

Other than anything smoother, will aid the dance

First Time Ever I saw

Nearest is the blossom tree

A few cherry-red leaves

Among the swathes of green

They dance, as if ballet dancers

Encouraged by the breeze

They move with a lover’s sense of joy

At least that is my perception

After reading Mr Palomar

Before Carol Anne Duffy’s Rapture

Sensuous, sensual, sexual, sensational

Curves, movement of wild abandon

A soft-skin smile of surface texture

As if the arm, as if the calf, as if the thigh

No one will ever know; why, or how

As the whispers quieten in stillness

The taller branches

Sway so so willingly behind

It is their courteous, yet dominant serenade

New

A new place in which to write

A fresh notebook, you guessed

Through the window is a morning light

Which falls on my recently purchased desk

The writing surface withdraws

Leaded-light shadows pattern the walls

Diamonds are what I see, what I saw

For it is above the apple tree where I sit so tall

This is to be another writing place

I hope for quite some while

To be decorated in good taste

For the eventual rapturous writing style

I look down onto racks of shoes

Through the wrought-iron bannister

There are no greys, or blues

Also the handrail is faded from its lustre

Aftermath

It is twenty-eight days since I began

All of it at home

Yet, virtually

A good bit of it away

Perhaps I did find more

By staying in my own place

Whilst visiting

Those other fine places

Keeping my distance

Oddly I now feel closer

More of an attachment

To Lavender Barn

Also to Houghton Hall

To the Cholmondeley’s

Home for sculpture, with

James Turell’s Lightscape

We have received news

From our charismatic leader

On the next phase

Of social distancing, together yet apart

There is peace

There is quiet

There is sunshine

There are orderly queues at the DIY store

Let us all hope

That this societal caring

May continue, who knows, maybe

We may grow to love each other more

Norfolk Quartet (4)

In abstensis

I am to leave you

Drive home

Record my movements

Recollect my thoughts

Upload my images

Then to pause, virtually

By the desk

By the computer

By the fullness of past times