AUTUMN 1969
Elms are flared
with yellow;
Oaks turn
bronze;
Mist swirls along
the furrow;
The year grows
old.
And the beech
trees stand
Root-deep in
discarded gold.
I,
squirrel-like secrete
About the
hollows of my mind
Jewels
To hang upon
the world
At other times
When all within
Is uniformly
grey,
When poetry
fades
And reason
Faces the light
of day.
But words
cannot retain
Such images;
Only their
ghosts remain,
Reminding me
how
Through the
autumn mist
I prayed
involuntary prayers
Of gratitude
To gods that did not
exist.
THE
As a pale sun glimmers and
water shimmers
Beneath a grey damp dawn
A gaggle of geese from over
the lee
Come single file to the
bourne.
In the deep dark pool where
the water is cool
Dipping their breasts they
wade;
Then they shake their
quills and the water spills
On the grass in a silver
cascade.
The first sun flings on
their flying wings
A glancing golden stain
As the flock takes flight
in the morning light,
Then wheels to home again.
All day, all day, in their
vagrant way
The vagrant flock will
roam,
Till the darkling air and
the evening prayer
Of the song thrush are
calling them home.
The gander surveys, by the
last faint rays
Of the sun, the fading
fields
and the foxy hill, and
he’ll listen still
When soon to sleep he
yields.
He holds the sky in the
gleam of his eye,
To the last of the sun he
calls.
An echo replies as the
daylight dies
And night’s mantle falls.
When shadows creep and the
grey geese sleep
Under the hawthorn hedge
He stands alone, an image of stone
At the whispering water’s
edge.
The Dog’s
Lament
The boss has gone; I’m a lonely dog;
I haven’t the spirit to prowl;
I look at my biscuits with jaundiced eye
And I sit by the door and howl.
I am the back-seat-driver,
I should be there in the van;
It’s me that keeps an eye on the road,
Not a damned computer plan.
The rain is dripping, the sheep are wet;
I can’t be bothered to bark;
I don’t give a damn what the ducks are doing;
My world has gone woefully dark.
Wispy, promiscuous bitch,
Is making eyes at the sitter;
But I am a serious collie dog
And I say it doesn’t befit her.
I know that we’ve been dumped
While the boss goes off on the spree.
It ain’t right; she loses all sorts of things,
But never drives off without me.
Sun
On The Hill
they
say in
“Sun
will come on a hill”.
So
put on your wellies,
get
out in the rain,
and
let life’s weather
send
what it will.
Though
the landscape
is
nought but storm-tossed sky
with
never a sign of a hill,
as
the storm exults,
and
the clouds unfold.
The
hills will reveal
themselves,
lurking still
and
somewhere there
on a
distant hill
a
velvet patch of gold.
Daw
haul ar fryn is pronounced dow hile ar vrin
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