Wishbone

No time to forget

Stone roads, blood-stains and sweat

All the hard efforts of bone

Bringing us to heel.

occlusion

…rain fell
drizzle at first
then fine mist
no more than fog
until the wind came
blew water before it
downpour, torrent, deluge
an entire sky flooding…

Imaginary Themes

Like landscape risen, an upthrust,

A pulse of rain or bleak weather to come

Something audible and deep,

Subharmonic and resonant…

…then the blues

The bending note, flattened fifth,

Or third, augmented, glissando

And counterpoint, thundering bass…

…that sad song of the south,

A love song of unending work,

Melody where the notes

Strung out on the stave’s rack

Cut like points of hurt and pain.

Of Wind or Rain

Invisible hands bring rain
Or, without rain, brush distant grass
In curved strokes upwards
From hollow to hilltop.

In wide green waves,
Darker currents bend the seedheads,
And fade away in the field margins.

Absentia

No more naming the flood's last scattering
Nor seawood bleached to the bone by weather;
No name for spiralled veins in living wood,
None for cracked ice under new ice forming.

No more words will separate
Bud from flower or the fruit that follows;
None will call up a harvest or name its days;
None will dry a summer after rain in spring.