After a night of electric fires -
fans, radiators, storage heaters -
the house feels almost habitable.
Night-driven here and bedded later,
wake to a noon of sun-gleam on cherry blossom,
three chickens scratting in the thick grass;
green stalks clumped of bulbs to come
look edible as spring onions;
and tree buds thickened
shine with waxen fuses.
Cherry blossom wounds with tenderness:
it pink-white clots a TIA* in our time.
Its delicate sensuality parallels
such tangible associations
that those veils touching
set little flames of loss and yearning.
The little seaside town's no shoe-shops now
to buy me robust boots forgotten in the packing,
but an abundance of cafes, half still kitting-out.
With tide hard-in, walk a narrow few yards
from cliff-face signatures of red and white
carstone topped with chalk, Cretaceous-style,
by fallen slabs wiggled with fossil burrows*,
seagull gossip in the chalky cliff-ledge homes,
goose-honk from the sedate flock abob
the little undulations of this mild still day,
and curlews calling, flying low away.
My walking stick's an extra limb for an old man,
to go before me to my landing place
as I leap the grey barnacle-encrusted rocks
out as far as lift their crowns from seas
where a surge threatens to inundate
my cheap work shoes. And, hey! I am here,
where my daughter (sensibly) will not go today.
So feeling young again, but joying in his stick,
the finest swordsman in all France* leaps back.
................................
*TIA - Transient Ischemic Attack... mini stroke
*Apparently made by decapod crustaceans - ancient shrimpy things.
*From 'The Three Musketeers'.
YOU ARE READING
Greenclad.
PoetryIvy-jacketed, December oaks on road-borders shock their stark gestures at us now, through sun and sleet, that January will yawn at and February, propping eyelids, will desperately ignore, longing for blossom; and making do with the least of anything...
