Taraloka dawn

Heard the cuckoo call

sunlight on mist-drenched meadows

silent blessings fall

1 December 2022

So. The bone-hard knuckle-end of autumn turns to stone- 

hard winter waits snarling in its lair

Yet. The petal-yellow gorse lies soft on my fingers-

 robin chitter-chatters from the hedge

and the bluest sea and sky meet in shimmering hope

Untitled

I pick my way over the rocks

more carefully now

than the child I can still hear

behind me

who ran heedlessly

wind and salt in her hair

across the fern-warm

seagull-calling cliffs

Ahead of me

I glimpse the crone

staff in hand

facing the unchanging horizon

a pocketful of mumbles

such are promises...

But for now the present

moment

is wild enough

dog at my feet

is wild enough

I taste with pleasure

the seasalt breeze

as our walk

turns us home

31 July

Blackb'rries in the rain

glowing like promised jewels

the first of the year

Discarded feathers

glinting in my upturned palm

this same shining day

' As I walked out...' 100 word prose-poem

Already the midsummer sun shimmers along the dusty track, my shadow a slender man in faded overalls and a wide-brimmed hat.

I ponder Steinbeck, Laurie Lee and Edward Thomas, for whom all roads led inevitably to France. And Frost, who couldn't persuade him to leave for America, his own two roads in a yellow wood, long he stood...

      The choices we make

       the shape of our walking

       and the roads we take

The day is too hot - my old dog pants beside me, the young one lolloping heedlessly ahead - until relief turns us down the dapple-cool seaward road home

Taraloka haikus June 2022

Cold around my heart

blows the unsuspecting wind -

hold your loved ones close

Tenderly the rain

still my desert heart cries out

for amazement

All my senses stilled

entranced by the dragonfly

glancing on a leaf

Facing the west wind

I breathe the salty air of

my imagination

Still, again we sit

the 'mindfulness of birdsong'

scintillates the air

Disparate pilgrims

beneath the 'shivering' tree*

and the bluest sky.   

(*populus tremula)

Precipitously

my compass-needle judders

then rebalances

How shall I return

scattering tears like raindrops

from this dreaming land

Journey(ing)

Blue blue sea-sky, and silver-flat wetland mirrors then, turning inland , softer-eyed green, and confetti-white blackthorn 

Later a bonfire , burning, and for an instant the redolence of acrid smoke,

brings always the yearning, the glancing, fleeting finger-tip 

of memory