Writing on the Wall

Sharp breath blows out another year,
with loops and tangles it blanket-stitches hay
and thistle down in sparse hedges.

Summer greens drain back to red earth,
leave grasses, dry and wild, to sing out
in sunlit haloes along the forest edge.

Winds spin and scatter leaves, they ginger up our roads,
busy as commuters clear platforms
or gather in café corners.

High tides flatten, gales brush out a season’s debris;
the tired year takes to its heart a summer lost,
poor harvests, flood and storm.

On glowing window glass the water streaks,
dark nights draw early lights; eyes close on forest, field,
and turn instead to kinder warmth of hearth and home. 

At three pm.
chattering bird babble
shakes us from the house,
a flying orchestra,
one thousand morphing birds
swirl and settle in the Ash.
 
A dressing of Starlings
trinket up bare boughs;
notes on a score,
cut out sihouettes
feathers flat and pointing south.
 
This tree-break interval
this high-way rest
for winging minstrels,
one body in their flight
their score and song.
 
A silent siren call,
the branches shift
and shadows lift in shoals,
mid verse, move on.

Clock watching, at blue mid-day
for lunch he’s heading back
the weighty plough-share rocks the cab
along a stony track.

The top fields turned. she saw him turn
it pink as skin in heat,
and shivers ridges when cloud
shadow’s past her feet.

Up across and down and last
he eased his steady plough,
up beyond the hills dark shrub
etched high upon its brow.

The rising blades flash signals
a code as clear as that
gathers gulls like doves
above the fields top hat.

Sea birds flutter like confetti
they’re celebrating toil,
some laughter in their calling
white-wedding with the soil.

She knows his step, his taste his smell
and all their ways of play.
They share the lunch, he is her clock
she is the plough man’s way.