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First Light

A Petrol sky etched with pinkish hue;
The muffled cockerel cry;
A hazy outline of moorland ridge;
The first calls of a thrush imbue.

Recumbent cows with their faces alight;
Shards from the eastern sun;
A lone calf wanders, stirring the herd;
Sharp cry of a blackbird in flight.

Conspicuous by its reddish form,
A deer runs back and forth.
Green juxtaposed against the golden grass
The hedge-lined fields adorn.

A gifted morning, a savoured treat
So often going unseen;
A hidden world- a rhythmic pattern;
Apposed lives chancing to meet. 

Ruth Partridge

Sonnet – For the Turn of the Year

For the turn of the year,the time is nigh;
The earth on its axis will spin its course 
Amidst a storm deluge out of the sky;
The raging flood  rivers running full force.
Sheep hug the hedge at the edge of the field;
The gale so relentless,branches are bowed;
Nature is silenced its armour to wield;
The ground is sodden where the huntsmen rode.
Day turns to night with darkness secluding;
Lanes are deep flooded, vehicles are strewn
Still it rains on all routes occluding;
Lights of the cottage replacing the moon.
Flames in the firelight thoughts quietly revered
And so we’ll ring in the bells of New Year.

From Night to This

So often awake at 4am to which I pen a few lines in the darkness – watching , always watching as the eye becomes accustomed to the dark . It is only then that I realise that dark has many forms and colours . Night vision is so depleted in us of the modern world. To watch from then until dawn can be a magical time. 

Stripped back to black and white
Gone is the west wind
Engulfed in a monochrome veil
Beyond the rectangle of light.

A black line in the steely grey
Strong is the moorland ridge
A changing etching palette
As the hours stretch on to day.

Sure as rhythms in turn unfold
Clarity of early frost 
Draw shapes and forms into focus   
Sun lit rays, a thread of gold.










The World Spins – until?

Cuckoo

My world so small
Wrapped in sack cloth 
As it spirals out of control
Into a picture too big to resize  

 
The planet spins 
Climate into oblivion
As politicians spew 
Meaningless
Rounded vowels 
Airborne like 
Spindrift

A broken record- 
Of rubbish stacked up on the streets
Ambulances in queues
What is the collective noun
For 15 of them- I wonder?
72 hours for a bed-
What NHS?
Energy we can’t afford
Energy we may not have
Empty supermarket shelves
And half the lighting 

Thoughts  are squirrelled in ringlets
As a mighty tsunami starts to build 
We see the cracks 
But no one heeds the message
Instead they argue
They fight
And the worlds spins on
Until…