Subtle Change

Tightly wrapped 
From sight 
Amidst
A world preoccupied  
Beneath leaden skies and rain
A sense of stealth prevails   
In the darkness
Across a  slightly lengthened day
A stirring 
The pallid canvas is being altered
With strokes of green
A snowdrop carpet covers the soil
Smudge of yellow stain marks early daffodils
Subtlety in detail 
There was no announcement made.

Not fully light 
And the thrush is heard 
Elusive too is she 
Piles of shells
Her calling card.
But what of the artist
Where is he?

The Chime of the Clock

The chime of the clock 
And I’m back: 

The elegant hall,
Portraits in ranked position,
Hopscotch over the shapes
In the worn Persian rug
(It was ancient even then);
The smoke from the drawing room,
Jovial military voices,
Academic conversation
The silver, polished and ready, 
The sound of the gong;
Seated promptly at table
Strict instruction given:
The correct cutlery,
Straight back,
Arms off table
Routine.

Artefacts endure
(Even the rug)
The clock repaired,
Voices, long silenced;
Time has passed,
A different house,
The clock ticks on.








They say animals have wisdom

The cat 
She has learnt:
Take each day as it comes; 
Silently she sits and looks out 
From the sill, 
Serene and calm
In thought; 
Still the weather does not change 
She asks for the door 
She surveys, 
The wind on her fur,
The dampness on a paw,
Daintily she shakes it off
And draws back inside, 
A repeated ritual 
Until resigned 
To a neatly made bed;
She retreats
To sleep;
She has learned to be still; 
She has patience
When plans are changed; 
I must learn patience
Like the cat.

The lane in the roar of the Gale

Filigreed tips of naked branches  
Strain
Against the roar of the gale;
A solitary crow- in futile flight-
Relinquishes its path 
Carried by the current
On a different plane;
Carrying the ghostly
Conversations  of ancient miners 
Who trudged this route 
In twilight hours
As darkness and grey mist 
Descend
Deep into the sunken lane
Where carpets of spongy moss creep
Over sodden  branches and roots;
And dripping  ferns plug every gap.
Pot -hole riven,
The single track is stretched in girth and lined in running orange stain
Of tractor tread,
Leaching from the ancient banks
Punctuated only  by gateways
Splayed wide open 
Straining on the hinges
That hold them.

Who Really Knows Me?


Thoughts and entanglements from the limits of my mind 
Within in the cerebral cortex; 
Fissured and deep
The folded contours
The map of my life
In laminar flow across
Hemispheres;
Woven, those gossamer threads,
Tangled wires of emotion,
Beads 
Of thought
Which link us to places
Long buried;
When awakened, they
Resurface, fragmented
From the hidden depths.

Each of us carries
The map of our lives
On our skin 
In the way that we move 
In the people we meet.
Recognisable 
Of that inner cognition?
Or refined and guarded
A manicured exterior?
The mirror’s reflection,
Intricately complicated,
So I hardly know myself,
And yet in One 
I am fully known
For we are beautifully and 
Wonderfully made.

Estuary


I turned my face to the sweeping sky
And the breeze drawn by the 
Eddying current;
I traced the snaking curve
Of the channel;
I watched the light play on
The mirrored surfaces-
Tiny rivulets spread like fingers
In the mud,
As Sandpipers picked their way 
With bobbing heads;
Their matchstick legs,
Angular and straight;
And beyond,a flock of avocets,
Their curved beaks
Stabbing like needles;
And wondered if their collective
Gathering was convivial;
Two geese nonchalantly grazed,
Comfortable together;
I looked across to ancestral roots
And connected to 
The view its beauty dawned.

Saving the Slapton Line

The Slapton Line is a narrow stretch of the A379 road that connects Torcross to Dartmouth. It is unique in running beside the sea on one side ( Slapton Sands ) and Slapton Ley ( a large body of freshwater of important scientific interest) . Many of my poems are inspired from this beautiful beach .

With every winter storm we now see the sand swept onto the road and the protecting boulders moved by the surge of the sea. Last year huge chunks of the road were washed away and the road was closed for months . If it is breached again, there will be no more repair and the road will be gone and the Ley will we swallowed by the sea.

Last night it was volunteers who worked through the night to save it ; the council had said wait until Monday .