POETRY

 Here is a selection of my poetry for SEPTEMBER

                                                                                                                   Df Caspar TREE OF CROWS

CROWS                                                          

Still moonshine.

A chatter of crows

Prelude celebration of first light.

Whilst others sleep

These shadows caw across the stubbled field :

Black harbingers who come with tales of death.

A CHANGE IN THE WEATHER

For days late summer heat had built

Hazing first fields of corduroy

Where swallows climbed the heavy air

To shimmer over distant wheat.

Dense storm clouds mass as black night turns

And thunder stumbles round the hills

Until a brief fluorescent flash

Illuminates our airless room.

Then rain. First heavy drops explode

Unevenly in ones and twos,

Till suddenly a torrent grows -

Setting awash the window sill,

Racing down gullies, blocking drains,

Cascading from gutters, swamping

Lawns........everywhere is overfilled.

Later we hear the storm's last roll

As timpani begins to slow :

Rain shushes to a steady drip.

And under blankets of warm air

We lie and wait for ragged dawn -

Together, but with separate thoughts -

Aware, like love, that summer's gone.

HAIKU FOR THE EQUINOX

(for Darryl)

Outside my window

Fat blackberries ripening -

Try one, taste the sun!

WINDFALLS

In this, the Autumn of her life,

Windfalls.

Mossed tree — planted to mark her birth —

Has grown too tall,

With fruit too high to reach.

Each day she waits for wind and sun

To bring her windfalls down.

And life has always been like this —

Spent tending to the fallen fruit :

Both parents, husband, then her son

Had tumbled from the family tree,

Been rescued after falling low

Like windfalls — bruised but whole.

SOON

As evenings shorten,

Light's orange glow

Glints from the eyes

Of tall buildings.

Swallows gather,

Dark beads restrung -

Looped above roads,

Their twitterings

Reproach the setting sun.

We will go soon,

We will go soon -

And I, whose infancy

Was sun and flowers,

Watch like a child

Surprised by adult grief,

Confused by sudden tears -

Left with enduring sadness.

             Swallow Diane Williams

SEPTEMBER BIRTHDAY

The geese are here, marking your special day –

Trumpeting loud greetings as they pass.

Warm sun plays softly on the trellised rose,

Attracting sluggish bees to end their fast.

The mouse-like wren chatters from late sweet peas;

More fallen apples litter dew-damp grass

And, from the wall, your robin watches all :

Counting last days of summer slipping past.

THE LAST TIME

Then, every year it was the same,

we'd wait to watch the geese return.

Just as the sun began to set,

we'd hear them from our cottage door,

honking and calling as they passed.

Somehow they knew when to arrive…

with harvest in and combine gone,

in twos and threes, then Vs and skeins

they'd circle round fresh stubbled field

that filled the top of Cabbage Hill —

dark silhouettes against red sky,

landing in tens beyond Long Copse.

Their congress lasted for a week

with trips to feeding grounds each day

and loud reunions at night.

Then they were gone, leaving the hill

as suddenly as when they came,

to over-winter miles away.

When, late last year, the land was sold,

men with hard hats and plans moved in,

soon diggers made the good earth fly.

“Creating new communities —

A family countryside retreat”…

But not a place to welcome geese.

OF THE MOMENT

How does a skilful artist capture now?

Moments of inspiration soon decay,

the freshness of those visions lost to time,

each line or brush-stroke made from yesterdays.

The camera’s no better trapping now,

the whirr of motor drives are like a clock,

with every click an image sets in time —

each freshly captured now in history’s locked.

Recording on real time CCTV,

the ever changing present fills the screen,

but when the set goes blank we know the cause:

it’s time’s persistent ghost in the machine.

“...the distinction between past, present and future is only

a stubbornly persistent illusion.” Einstein

 ALL POEMS ON THIS WEBSITE ARE SUBJECT TO COPYRIGHT