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.

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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.