Category Archives: Nature

Farmhouse delivery

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Now Charles appears, the latest of the line,
Arising with the sun to claim his day.
No midwife needed for this noisy lad,
Impatient to arrive and print his tracks
Upon the fields of Life,
Untouched by parents’ fears who, faute de mieux,
Learn as they go, respecting nature’s hour
Which clearly waits for none.
But all is well and anguish cedes to joy
As James and Lucy birth their bonny boy.

Let blessings fall as plenteous as the rain
And love and hope their family sustain!

With love and congratulations 28.7.01
Daddy

Race against time

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Time was lethargic
In those early days,
Taking his rhythm
From a sluggish clock
High on the classroom wall.
He dragged his feet
At every turn,
Advancing Christmas
All too slowly,
Droning on endlessly
In Sunday sermons.
Only at nightfall,
Colluding with parents,
Did he hasten his pace
To get us to bed.
He was a spoilsport
of the worst kind,
Always hanging around
But not really with us.

He showed his true colours
In the season of shooting stars,
Never waiting for me.
Never looking over his shoulder
But setting a stiff pace
with leaps and bounds,
Like a boy out of school
Vaulting flooded ditches,
Taunting: “Come on, slow coach!”
I had no choice but to follow,
My feet ever heavier,
His pace quickening at each stile.
There was no pity in him,
No hint of comradeship,
And I knew that, in the end,
He would forge ahead alone
And abandon me gasping,
Face downwards in the mud.

November 1991

Down the Gullies

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The silver sandbanks beckon me
Towards the ebbing sea,
So down I go with shrimping net
And sandwiches for tea.

My favourite gullies stretch away
Towards a distant land
Where sea meets sky beyond the rocks
And bars of untrod sand.

This is the shore where Neptune reigns,
Where mermaids swim and play,
Where tides stand still before they turn
To rise, then flow away.

Among the rocks a thousand pools
Lie cool and green and deep,
With seaweed forests still and dark
All seemingly asleep.

But in their depths the blennies dart
And green crabs hide and dig,
The hermits scuttle out of sight,
Their shells a shade too big.

Here all is calm and I’m alone,
The sun moves on his way
Across the cloudless summer sky
Towards the end of day.

The tide has turned, it’s time to go
Back to the distant shore;
My jam jar’s full of shrimps and crabs,
Tomorrow there’ll be more.

For Helier, Lucy and Bessie – August 1979