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spring

THE BROKEN BRANCH

Where the primary school and the houses end

are hawthorn hedges and occasional oaks

on either side of the lane. From the school gates

the leafless trees are an arching, tangled

fretwork – closer each twig is proud, discrete,

vital, sentient. A sudden gust of wind,

or a lightning blow, in one oak tree’s

early growth snapped off a branch, and left an arm

with a claw like a beak. Shut behind the gates

the gradground children have no chance at all

to imagine the stub of a branch a bird,

note the old birds’ nests in the hedgerows,

acorns crushed beneath occasional tyres,

and, whole, nestling in the wintry verges –

or count the first green leaves.

 

 

 

MEMENTO VIVERE

i.m. Ian Jones

 

There is no right age to die – or way to mourn.

As I thought of him, the small bush I could see

from the desk I wrote at – a plant whose name

we had forgotten, lost – was burgeoning:

its leaves greening, swelling, as spring, despite

that day’s north westerly, took hold. In time –

which he no longer had or had in

profligate abundance – an array

of delicate pink and white flowers would bloom.

 

I thought of his talents, his unassuming

skills – mammon’s measurements – and what makes us

human:  his smile, chuckle, patience, gentle

irony, and his kindness. That chance

perennial would be a remembrance.

 

It flowered with an abundance of petals

in early summer. Within weeks the flowers

began to die, singly, and then in bunches.

The leaves withered and fell. He would have grinned

hugely at such bathos.

 

 

 

SPRING, AFON MENAI

High waters from each end of the straits
meet here in whirlpools, in vortices
of current and spume – that at their highest
cover the island, which weathers each maelstrom,
and flood its improbable cottages.

***

A little inland along a banked lane,
lambing ewes are in a field. There are
a dozen or so, some birthing, some with young.
We look over the bank, startle a ewe,
intrigue her offspring. Mother moves off,
child follows. The grass is cropped, springy.
The recent storms have felled an oak that lightning
had blackened and eviscerated years ago.
Waters rush through culverts beneath the lane.

***

The tides ebb. On the island, no one now
uses the fish traps the drowned cottages
were built for. Codlings, dogfish, sea bass
swim freely, oblivious of chance.

 

 

 

A COMMONPLACE

David Selzer By David Selzer0 Comments1 min read317 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.