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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

Observations in the Woodland Garden

My hands deep in the earth-
Stained and worn
Where air is heavy and intense  from spores released with rain;
I watch fine droplets streaming down new leaves 
Arched over with weight
As fronds of ferns
With Prehistoric curl
Hang low
In communion with Dog-toothed violet;
Where faded  primroses nod
To bluebells near purple in their 
Intoxicating intensity;
The old fork is propped
Ready to lift the clods of soil
In time- worn fashion
In this ancient part of the garden.

Observations on a Postcard

Beautiful afternoon for watching the beach and eating shellfish alfresco at the Winking Prawn .

North Sands Salcombe South Devon 
A postcard view within a snapshot 
But sit awhile and observe the flow
Towards the shoreline 
Down and up
Except
Eyes  skyward, a whippet follows a disc 
In predictable line of anticipated retrieval across the wet sand
Breaking the mirrored surface
Avoiding the flow 
Cloud patterns sweep the shore 
In laminar flow
As the water pools like a spill on the ground 
And carefree  children trace their 
Route trailing bucket and spade
In grooves made by sand worms
To the water’s seamless edge   
A liminal zone with little distinction
Before the paddle border takes the stage 
And the whir of the speedboats in the bay.

Earth’s shores

Earth’s shores
Those boundaries  defined 
As sand slips silently away
Neither land nor sea 
A liminal place
Shape shifting 
Where nothing is solid
Draws like the gravitational
Pull of the tide
To cast  thoughts 
In anonymity
To the waves
Yet closer in fragility ensconced
To the emphemeral nature 
Of the spirit
Heard by the cry of the gull
And all of heaven above.

Inspired by a line in the book I am reading .

Starlight Rivers

A river dips into oblivion 
Karstic it dissolves through limestone
Forming glass- like windows
Beneath the ground
Starlight rivers snake their way
A thousand metres beneath the soil
Limestone itself is tidal
Surging and dropping 
Unnoticed beneath our feet
To the pull of the moon. 
There is so much I do not know 
So much I do not understand 
So much I do not question .