Today’s dawn chorus starts with a tawny owl.
Soft hooting drifts through the
7am darkness.
The shrillness of my alarm clock
is so ugly by comparison.
Tag: poem
1
The absence of fairy lights
reveals the gloom of January.
Let’s make our own light.
Goldcrest
Glimpse of movement
overhead, a tiny bird almost
lost among branches
drops downwards,
capped fire-streak searching
restlessly for insects
expertly probing the bark then
stopping briefly to show
the world its beauty.
New for 2019, I’ve decided to start sharing my art here along with my poems. I paint wildlife (mainly birds) on silk. I’ve set myself the challenge to write a poem to go with each of my paintings, starting with this goldcrest that I painted last year. I thought I’d try an acrostic poem, I’ve not written one of those since I was at school 30 years ago! Hope you enjoy it & wishing you all the best for 2019.
Boxing day walk, Shap
A russet blur runs
arrow-straight
through green fields.
A fox, fleeing
the baying hounds.
A seasonal bouquet
If you, too, find this season
sometimes tinged
with melancholy,
I send you a bouquet
picked from my garden
at summers end.
Sunlight turned
to structure,
beauty in the seeds
of tomorrow.
The light catchers
Stepping out
of the seasonal rush,
drivers stop
by the estuary edge.
–
Together we pause,
momentarily,
to catch the light
as it fades.
Mountaintops glow orange.
Dawn reflecting
on November snow.
River of wings
It starts with a drip, a drop, a splash
as a handful of starlings zoom past my window,
causing me to glance up from the computer screen.
I get back to work, but then
the trickle becomes a stream
and holds me, mesmerized.
Pulses, waves of flickering, fluttering birds,
hundreds, then thousands.
I cannot help but marvel,
following them with my eyes as they streak past,
just one tributary of a giant river of wings,
following them with my mind
to the nearby reedbeds
where they will join, and dance.
Thousands upon thousands coordinated
in breathtaking choreography
until on some secret signal
they descend to the reeds to roost.
Outside my window the river slows to a trickle
For a while, small flocks of stragglers whizz by
just drips and drops as darkness falls.
Sleep tight, little birds.
Evening practice.
Ten mindful breaths
beneath the stars.
I am breathing in the cold night air
as goose calls drift up from the estuary.
We share the same moonlight.
Life in the Fresh Air 