If only Winter was the Old Winter

            Embrace the Rain

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The ginkos are gone the colour of 

Midsummer glare, fans finally falling.

Beeches now brilliant auburn, poplars

Drifting orange yellow instead of white

Cotton. Leaves lifted as easily in whipped-

Up gusts with rain against windows.

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The cold requires we bundle up

In gloves and hoods, but we embrace 

Winter weather, smile with chapped lips,

Rubbing ruddy cheeks, like a proof 

We’re not in so much trouble, perhaps

The world is not turning terribly 

Scorching dry, desiccating all round us.

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We cling to this chill as an indication of 

Lessened danger: deceiving ourselves,

Like lung cancer patients, counting dear

Cough-free hours as signs we’re in the clear.

A simple idea as autumn finally feels like it’s here, with plenty of rain these last few weeks.

But of course, it’s not quite winter, at least not winter as it was. In the local park, while the willows are shedding their leaves, these trees are coming in to bloom, as if it were February already…

The park of Yamaguchi in Pamplona (over manicured, as usual) with a row of trees all fooled into thinking it’s spring though it’s not yet Christmas.

Spring Springing, Sprung

Potted flowers upon the wall of a patio in Cordoba… not the hydrangea of the first stanza, but each a point of light in our lives.

            The Great Unfurling

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Potted hydrangea upon a windowsill

Sets forth fresh leaves: tender, verdant

Sheets break out along dry sticks, fragile.

I daily watch them form as March marches.

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Granted the gift of infinity of seconds,

In observation, I wish to break out,

Past the patio to spend

Spring beyond, experience

Every plant’s rebirth and blossoming,

To miss not this great unwinding,

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From forest floor, wild asparagus and

Ferns unfurling, breaking forth

Each bud, young leaves extending,

Spreading, fat fingered

Fronds from chestnut trunks;

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Witness every sprig of speedwell,

Burst of buttercups, 

Spray of daisies, and breeze

Dancing dandelions, dainty dog violets.

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Later let me see the fall

Of flower petals to the path,

From each high floral bouquet:

Dashing with pink and white

The grass, creating a colourful carpet,

Delicate to delight our way,

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Through this season; so short, yet

Too intense to appreciate the display.

Been a busy few weeks with little posting – though a fair bit of poetry and some writing, and lots of reading! But mostly just enjoying the spring, which is blooming lovely, if too dry in a lot of places.

I just spent the weekend down in Andalucia, and the heat is rising quickly there, so it’s almost summer, with swifts screaming in the skies already. On the train on the way down, it was clear many fields will give little harvest this year.

Spring is always my most distracted season and this year is no exception. or an exception to the extent that I’ve decided to spend as much time as I can just soaking it up, so I spent hours staring out the train window rather than writing or reading. Nevertheless, the words come, stored up for winter or spluttered out for a short poem.

Hope you like it.

Cherry bossoms in the park. The petals will soon strew the paths in pink.

PS, when I returned after the Easter Holidays the hydrangea was nearly dead, having been left unwatered. I gave it some and hope it will recover (it’s not mine, by the way!)

Glorious

This is a shot I took in a different place than I had the inspiration, when I had the time to stop and shoot it. It’s not quite as glorious, but it’s damn lovely all the same. Autumn took a while to arrive, but it’s great to see it.

            And It’s Glorious

The storm has eased, eventually.

Though cold, trees still, dripping yet,

Leaves left, strewn upon the street:

Sheets of gold and ochre. Streams of

Sticks and twigs clog the gutters,

Grown to spreading pools, reflecting 

Gorgeous tempest survivors overhead.

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And it’s glorious: a rare, raw, glimpse 

Of our world without the concrete.

At least until the sweepers resume,

Scouring nature with their plastic brooms.

September Still acts like Autumn after all

We have finally got some decent days of rain – and who’d have thought we’d be saying such words even a couple of decades ago?

September has returned, and the swimming pools have closed – an important part of the end of summer even in this cooler part of Spain.

So here’s a short poem inspired by the last dip a couple of weeks ago…

These clouds didn’t produce any wanted rain, but a few days later we got some good wet days to soak the soil, and the heat has gone from afternoon.

            September Again

Chill seeps through skin and up 

Legs creating a repelling shiver

Shaken off at last, reluctant leap,

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Sweeping sweat away in one

Stroking refreshing lengths of

The clear water, vibrant, energized,

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Once out, heat resting upon

The village becomes welcome again.

Soaking afternoon sun

Seems summer holds yet

Tight to the terrain. Still

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Leaves left lying upon pool tiles

Tell a different tale:

September has returned;

Trees not dry of drought turn,

Blackberries shrivelled on brambles

Sloes fallen from thorns, walnuts

Weakly cling to limp twigs;

Chestnut spikes lie scattered

On forest floor, surprisingly, as if

We’d somehow forgotten 

Autumn would come, and

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Somewhat disconcerting,

At first, as evening chill envelops – 

Our inertia preferring to ignore it.

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Yet, when jumpers dug out of drawers,

We’ll embrace the breeze:

As bracing as this latest bathe.

Here the trees yet green, flowers yet in bloom, though bracken has been harvested in some of those fields for winter and chestnuts (small this year) are on the forest floor.

Late Rains

            Late April Rains

The rain makes everything all right,

Like blessed water flowing over lips.

Birds sing sweeter as if assured

Life will hang on in for spring,

As insects emerge from dry refuge

To delight in the damp leaves.

Eardrums encounter drips gently

Caress the mind into peaceful ease:

Merged in memories of seasons spent

Naïve as nestlings of summers to come.

sf

It’s a rainy day today, which reminded me of a poem I wrote a month or so ago, about how the rain is welcome when the land is parched. At least in imagination it staves off the drought to come and we live a little longer.

Crazy Weather… just who’s the crazy one around here?

They say you never know yourself if you’re going crazy… perhaps it seems those around you are tho ones who are really crazy.

We call this weather crazy, but aren’t we really the crazy ones for not recognising it for what it is, and indeed really basically fucking batshit crazy for letting it happen without doing anything useful to stop or slow it, and in fact being the cause of it all…. and all the time knowing that it’s going to come back and not just bite us on the arse, but beat the shit out of us, till any sense we have left will be knocked out of us.

Flowers share the branch with not-yet-fallen leaves on a tree in November in a Pamplona park….

            The Reaping of Disdain 

Pink blossoms add extra beauty

To an autumnal almond tree:

Orange and auburn leaves left

Before falling with the frost

At least formally expected 

If it arrives as it did normally in

November. 

Sun and clear sky

Seem apt background to marvel

At young walnuts dotted on a

Bare-leaved tree, wondering if we

Will get a second harvest this year.

Like the oilmen grinning as the

Ice melts for their machines to

Begin drilling without awaiting 

Spring, 

  

We reap the short-term 

Gains until the true harvest of

Our disdain, ignorance, apathy

Ripens in silent screaming of 

Ecosystems stretched to snapping.

The walnuts. They were still growing last week, even after a snow squall in between…

Cathedral Leaves

            Cathedral Leaves

November sunlight shines at right angle

To catch leaves like stained window panes

On cathedral trees, lining riverbank, flanking

Dancing stream gleaming like black marble.

Drakes draw diamond wakes through dark

Water, songbirds call sonorous cries flying

Through timber, sweet as a child’s choir.

Marvelling at this flowing manifestation of

Nature’s majesty, I stand in reverence:

An experience as solemn as sacraments,

Holy as the spirit infusing these trunks

And tender tendrils dangling delicate

Leaves twisting daintily in the breeze.

And I wonder why those who kneel for

An invisible being in the sky, don’t even stop 

To breath in, appreciate this display of 

Beauty splayed out before them, inhale

Divinity in every breath of autumn 

Dampness, soaked up sounds like dewfall,

Absorbed through skin as golden photons;

On shoulders felt the gentle hand of eternity.

A hilltop in a local park with sun shining in the trees – I never actually took any photos of the scene with the river… mostly just look, and then hope the poem paints the picture better than my phone camera can….

The Winter of Our Discontent?

          

a local park in Pamplona… pondering the leaves, the pigeons, the life about the park benches and how long we’ll be allowed to look at it this fall – will the gates close before the last leaf falls?

   The Winter of Our Discontent?

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We sit and watch autumn fall upon us, daily;

The park employees still sweep up leaves,

Now the last grass mowing has past.

Pigeons and ducks tuck into tossed bread, 

Filling up for colder times, robins arrive from 

Colder climes, while we wonder whether 

Gates will weather open all the way to winter:

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A thought neither here not there for the

Twittering finches in the turning trees

Above the bench as I write, depressing

Ideas of Christmas devoid of cavalcades,

Parties or people we would gift our presence.

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To live with this disease in our midst, we need lifts:

Standing amid pines, or plans to participate,

Smiles and simple hugs: scenes to celebrate.

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While robins free to fly away in warmer weather 

Pigeons will persist on unswept seeds, 

Finches filled with felicity, we will sit inside,

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Pining, and chastising ourselves this idiocy;

Sitting watching screens instead of celebrations,

Imbibing wine in place of cherished faces.