FEBRUARY... MARCH...

THIS SIGN HAS NO SCRAP VALUE

Couldn't resist a laugh at this sticker I saw on the back of signage in Rotherham's temporary Forge Island bus station yesterday, and had to share!

SPELUNK

Photo credit and thanks to Peter de Vink from Pexels

THE LAST EARTHWORM

Inspired by reports in the UK press showing the massive decline in earthworms is due to over-cultivation, toxic pesticides, herbicides, nitrates, phosphates and insecticides, plus anti-wildlife government policy is contributing to songbird decline. Yet still ignorance insists on scapegoating other birds like magpies and sparrowhawks for natural predation as if they're the culprits!

QUOP

Photo: pixabay/pexels

MIST ON THE RIVER

Photo credit and thanks to Karol Wisniewski from Pexels 

DAFFODILS ON CHURCH WALK

Daffodils along Church Walk, Wickersley, South Yorkshire (Author's photo)

DAFFODILS ON CHURCH WALK

Your parallel parade

Glances along stones

On this ancient path

Buttery with livening light

Yolk-gold and lemon

Riddling flaxen sun-shafts

Into the moment

Weaving sorrowing souls

Their soil-bound stories

With a nod of now

A frisson of forever

Spring

COME CRUMBLE ME

BLACKBIRD'S DREAM

KNOWING KNOWING NONE

TREES ALIGN

AFTER THEIA

Earth minds her business being born

In subtle rhythms

Vibrancy of space

When blindsided by Theia blundering by

They kissed and swung

Garlanded by debris discs expanding

Rippling sunlit fragments

Back out towards the Sun

Then came those moments

Waiting in stunned still

Seeing the Moon melting out of gravity

Into mottle and pucker of sea and crater

Earth ingests her clumsy

Creative gate crasher

Deep in her core and mantle

Finds herself tilted so round her jaunty axis

New seasons strum her

Rush over her shimmering colours of bang

BRAIN TURNED TRAITOR

Why won’t this key turn the old way in the lock?

Everything’s back to front, these days.

You count your change with somebody’s liver spot fingers –

Surely they can’t be yours? -

Never seems to tot up right, somehow.

The unlit gas looked safe, hissing silent below

The threshold of your hearing

When you left the cooker to answer the phone.

Alien voices calling your Sunday name

Boom through the room 

From that box with its winks and wires.

You caught that silly button round your throat

Again by accident. You can’t remember last time. Or the last.

It’s not a necklace you would ever have chosen

When you walked upright, sprightly, doing three jobs,

Busy and coping and confident.

The numbers on the calendar are all higgledy thump.

Days are dead-eyed with strangers

Someone even stranger says are carers.

Please never forget:

No-one should ever feel foolish for forgetting.

In the jumble stall muddle of a brain turned traitor,

Know you are loved for who you really are,

Though absent memory may go rogue

Your soul shines bright, though mind's eyes may be closed.

HAIKU FOR A DAFFODIL

WILL YOU BE MY VALENTINE, SILENCE?

THE EDGE OF HEARING

Inspired by accompanying my 87-year old mum to her hearing aid appointment this morning!

BELLY UP

HARES

My tribute to the hares lovingly carved as they climb towards the waxing crescent Moon on the trunk of an Oak tree in Wickersley Wood, near Rotherham, South Yorkshire, UK.

BROCK

A poem written today for my dear friend Kathy's birthday, who is a true 'lover of brocks'.

BROCK

For Kathy on her birthday

I snuffle under your window in the night

Trusting your steady gaze and bedroom lamp

As I trust the Moon’s silvering

On my grizzled brow,

My shining snout.

I sense your loving spirit

Fostering me and mine,

As mid-rootle, I freeze to foil

Culls, baiters, diggers,

Or when I cross the ways unhurt

Where petrol predators stalk with speed.

To you, silently overwhelmed to see me,

I bring a badger’s blessing

From cubs curled in secret setts of tomorrow,

From slopes where earthworms wriggle to the feast,

From subterranean maze of passages

From chambers where we drowse,

Furry sleepers under heedless feet.

You we hold heart-deep, as you hold us dear,

Lover of brocks,

Of Britain’s most ancient burrowers

Beneath thin places we tunnel yet more thin.

CAOIMHE THE WHITE - a short story

Photo credit: Wolf on Pexels

I hear the doves calling my name from the cliffs.

“Coo-ee-va! Coo-ee-va!”

Nobody is listening. Down here, at knee height, the clamour of human rage is deafening. Angry ones surround me on all sides. The ones on the right have given all they own to crush those on the left. The ones on the left have spun their half-truths into dragnets to capture the ones to the right. The ones in the middle are shooting in circles hitting everyone who stands in range.

Some signal their entitlement, waving banners printed with ancient riddles. Others sport visors of privilege, rushing against the ranks of the peddlers of falsehood, carrying secret swords weighted with words. Faceless mercenaries are kettling them all, persuading them with pikestaffs and promises, right, left , centre, slantwise towards the sea.

I won’t howl, for that would sound to them like despair. I will not whimper. Yet, how else can I touch them? 

Some from the right dig in their heels, as they are dragged under the feet of those left-lingerers. I can see some on the left trying to climb the walls to escape.  As soon as they get half way up, they turn back to unleash their mockery on the heads of the right-ramblers, faces contorted with scorn below. Nobody cares if they fall in their fury. They get to call it victory. The ones in the middle are no longer safely centred. They are being spun like scythes in a whirlwind, first right, then left, always slicing, always dividing, always falling and failing.

I am running, here, there, anywhere I can still see daylight between them. They are fluttering, battering themselves against one another like moths in a funnel of fire, melting into mayhem. Why don’t they love each other any longer?

I must reach them. I can’t see who is who. Bodies blur. I can’t check their identities, allegiances, alliances. What would it matter to me? Every last one is in my heart. Every last one fills a gulf in my soul.

So I’m pushing forward, the hairs on my body brushing between their kicking legs, narrowly avoiding their stumbling soles. My ears are full of their yelling, their screeching for vengeance, for violence, for retaliation. 

I nudge a hand with my muzzle. It hangs limp. I lick the cheek of a pale one fallen. She doesn’t move. We are almost at the cliffs now. Some are charging along the edge, but the mob of them has grown so wide, others spill into the breakers and fall silent. I cannot catch their eye again.

“Coo-ee-va! Coo-ee-va!”

High and far, in the fragile light bouncing off the salt waves, I hear the doves. This time, the people hear it too. It means nothing to them. Yet the sound makes them all unstiffen their necks and raise their heads to the sky to see what this strange cry might mean. They halt as one, inches from the cliff edge. I sense they are confused. Why are they all standing together? Who has messed with their differences? Who dares play peacemaker? The doves are not giving them entertainment, or predictions, or tokens to spend. What could possibly be their worth? But no matter. They stand still anyway. The thrift flowers blow kisses of pink petals to soothe raw ankles and scarred heels.

A trill, a squeaking as the creak of a door from the sea.

“Coo-ee-va! Coo-ee-va!”

Half of them turn their heads to where the sun is cracking her golden yolk into the salmon-flecked ocean. The other half listens without understanding, to the song of the dolphins offshore.

I nuzzle the palm of a young child as I melt away. Her mother hears her giggling and lifts her up shoulder-high, dropping her weapons to ricochet off the rocks and come to rest in a rockpool.

“Mummy, did you see the white wolf?”

“There are no wolves in this land,” says her mother. “That's just silly talk, little one. Let’s get you home.”

“Her name is Caoimhe. She is for us and for our peace. The doves and dolphins told me.”

PLEASE, SHOOT ME NOW, IT'S BIN DAY!

Please, shoot me now, it’s bin day! There’s another wheelie more -
The patio’s getting crowded, bins are queuing at the door.
The green bin was for garden waste, today it’s paper and card.
I’d go and check but truly, it’s a squeeze out in our yard!

The brown bin’s grass and clippings, now, the blue box is no more,
Which used to take the tins and glass that now the black bin’s for.
Stickers announce this black bin, which spent years as household waste,
Is now for plastic, glass, and foil and trays no food has graced.

So what about the fourth bin with its lid of shocking pink,
For which the townsfolk voted? Let’s have a little think.
Oh yes, this rosy rubbish bin that smacks you in the eyes
Is for all the waste remaining, though it’s scarcely half the size

Of the black bin it’s replacing, and when all is said and done,
Council tax will pay for three bins, but the brown bin’s on its own,
With its separate solo payment, and its own timetable too.
Confused? Well, you soon will be! Trash is coming after you!

If we want to save the planet, if we want to heal the Earth,
Then we need to get recycling more, for all that we’re still worth!

THE JOY OF SCAMPER

Suddenly startling, yet continuous

For you with the joy of scamper,

You skitter through underbrush

Damp with February.

To me you are lift in a lick of light

Travelling the trunk of an oak,

A denser shadow, furred furrow.

Tree knows your transient tickle,

Stays focused beyond your claw clicks

On her slow hidden

Fostering of foliage,

The suckling of Spring.

IT ALL DEPENDS

ONE THING

There's only one thing.

One thing important to say.

One thing important today.

You are beautiful.

Whatever your fears or failures.

You are loved.

Whatever your need to curl up

Licking those wounds unseen.

You are safe. 

Cherish yourself

In the warm wise core of your heart.

There is peace here.

Peace you bring to the eye of your storm.

Don't let the wilderness of this wild world

Pull the wool over your lovely eyes.

You are good enough, beloved.

This is the simple truth.

This is all you need.

It is enough.

Enough,

And so are you.

BELLA AQUA

Photo credit: Pixabay via Pexels.com

Spill. Splurge. Swilker.

We splosh. We slop. We slurp.

O Bella Aqua! Wondrous water!

Today we keep you prisoner,

Aerate you not by thrilling plunge

Cascades where you can shimmer,

Shiver, shatter, shine in rainbow,

But by brutal blasts of CO2

In plastic bottles a-fizz with death,

Drunk by our drunken

Toxic passing foibles,

Seething our sludge of poison

Back to Mother Ocean.

As river we pollute you

With our casual cast-off,

Our heaving landfill

Shores up sea defences

Against the tide of taint

We've boiled and brewed,

Seeping and leaching

Through the thirsty land.

Casual we jerk the tap

To drain your flood and flow

At every blindfold whim of wastefulness.

Bless your primordial founts and fonts,

Your chuckling wellsprings,

Mirrors of genesis,

That we once honoured

As our liquid life,

Vital as breath,

We lapped with silence on our lips.

Instead we have abandoned

Your secret sacred surging

To nodding donkeys

And the fissures of frack.

SORRY SUN

GET OUT OF YOUR MIND

IMBOLC 2019

Snowdrop melts into glass-crisp swirl.
Spring stutters
Under silver tresses
Of birch. Leant
Against the flaking bark,
Chilblain wrinkled,
Old one stoops
Arthritic with her
Dowager's hump,
Cradling the bridal bursting
In her lap,
Where the edge of thaw
Stains daylight
With its fluttering storms
Of crocus and inclemency.

She lifts her aged fingers
To the tent's sagged roof
To shed the snowfall
While she croons
Songs of weasel and of hare.
Earth's scald of inner friction
Too far beneath to warm
This refugee, this home-lost.
From temporary kitchens,
Soup pans
Nourish with blessings
Ladled into her bowl,
Whose simmering surface
Reflects the face of an angel.

In her arms, the youthful shoot
Still sheathed in silence,
Stirs and hears the lapwing
Curling and kiting
Through the wheeling wafers
Of persisting winter.