Reorientation

 

 

 

evening sky suspends

the august moon, a bubble

of polished nacre

conflagrant sun capsizes

in spreading tangled

flight of seraph's silken wings

 

night air presages

the biting breath of ground frost

berries bloat with juice

flushed dog-rose sings its swansong

briny wind floats chaff

from sleek and spiky stubble

 

  

deer parade antlers

now the velvet glove is off

rutting and courting

prelude new generations

bone tangles branched bone

with primal bullish bellow

  

capillaries fail

tendrils strain their sluggish shoots

cupped acorns harden

browsed by streaking silver form

best culled ripe and tanned

beech mast shells the forest floor

 

 

gull pins salty eye

on aerial dance of swifts

and swallows whose mind

homes on tropic Africa

cradle of mankind

Albion his own again

 

day and night make truce

bronze the light and fondant green

rain-stippled winds blow

defiant autumn blazes

anaesthetic June

had not this tingling vibrance!

 

 

 from The Twain, Poems of Earth and Ether