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frost

AT THE YEAR’S TURNING

I pause at the long window where the stairs turn.

The first hard frost of the season has rimed

the moss on the terrace. A neighbour has thrown,

as she does daily, stale bread on the flat roof

of her garage. Two Jackdaws arrive

then a small flock of Black-headed gulls

in winter plumage. The first comers

are aggressive. The gulls hover, swoop, feint,

feed swiftly, rise, return – like dancers.

(How truly ancient is these animal’s

ancestry! How arriviste we primates are!).

All, even the crows, are utterly silent.

 

I think of last summer: a beach in heat haze

and our three and a half year old grand daughter,

chuckling, chasing, gently, a Black-headed gull –

that had been intent on scavenging

crusts and crisps among the profligate –

then watching it take wing into the mist.

 

By the year’s end, to my unceasing surprise,

we will be seventy one. We have been

together many more years than apart,

so best to assume we will always be here –

and be deaf to the certainty of silence.

 

 

A COMMONPLACE

David Selzer By David Selzer0 Comments1 min read321 views

The succulent, bright green shoots of early spring;

the blackthorn – on distant hedgerows like

sporadic late frost or, close to, pearls

of scattered barley; the tiny goldcrest

with its mighty voice – see see see, see see see:

presage the summer’s rich beneficence.

 

This is her second spring. She points with wonder

and joy at a sudden breeze that shakes

the cherry tree, disturbs its white petals

against the bluest sky, the brightest sun.

She is walking now – or, rather, teetering

fearlessly through her own universe

of daily marvels: dead leaves, small children.

Adept for quite a time in her own

lingua franca soon she will learn ours,

a mundane, quotidian miracle.

 

IN THE COMPASS OF A PALE

With branch, stalk, thorns, by a dry summer’s

overgrowth obscured, in one unkempt border,

a rose – traditional, heart red – bloomed.

Over tall weeds and grasses, tangled, brittle,

I leant to pluck it, found it blown, blooded,

a bouquet of wormy petals – left it

blighted, inviolate. Where the black gate

hinged to the wall banking our garden,

coffin-sized, skeletal leaves gathered,

whispering, stones, stones. Come winter, frost fissured

bricks and luxurious, pitchy earth sprinkled.

In spring, grasses sprouted in the crevice;

fleshy leaves hissed, breath, breath.