72 micro-seasons 56

Janey...

Spring flowers in bloom

lift their faces to the rain -

unruly season

Helen...

I ought to plant bulbs,

But the wild bright cornflowers 

Just keep hanging on.

Kit...

Peach-rimmed evening sky

scratched with steel wool clouds - sharp air 

for gloveless fingers

Moving on

Less feather, more stone

weathered, tentatively rise -

shell, body and bone

72 micro-seasons 55

Janey...

Kites wheel and whistle,

rainbows chase across the sky

along the coast road

Kit...

The last of the leaves

cleave to fingers, arms, of trees

not wanting to leave

Helen...

Darkling afternoons

Merge softly into nighttime -

Morning light wakes me.

72 micro-seasons 54

Janey...

But cotton-wool clouds

adorning summer-blue skies

belie autumn nights

Helen...

Bold as brass, regal,

A young deer sits down to rest

In my flowerbed.

Kit...

Not yet dark - still light

enough to see reflections 

in the leaf-bright beck

72 micro-seasons 53

Janey...

Happy hunting dog,

a sparrowhawk upstartling -

now who is the prey?

Helen...

Pear tree whose blossom

Billowed like great clouds of snow

Now drops sticky fruit.

Kit...

Under the beech, tall

as a pirate ship, a hoard

of tuppeny bits.

Haiku for the turning of the seasons...

Not feeling my age -

strolling home with half a tree

tucked under my arm

72 micro-seasons 52

Janey...

Sunlit inland hills,

above the sullen horizon

indigo storms wait

Kit...

Dripping woods at dusk -

pheasants bicker like rusty 

engines on the blink

Helen...

Pumpkins ripening

On windowsills - a sudden

Sharpness in the air.