Branchage

Potato fields
Are empty;
Haulms turn brown
In the sun.
All along
Country lanes
Sickles cut
Deep into
June grasses.
Red campions
And nettles
Fall with vetch
And yarrow.
The shorn lanes
Are wider
And sadder.
Tomorrow
Men with rods
Will pass here
To measure
The clearance,
Fining each
Landowner
For any
Obstruction.

1971

Under the cherry tree

Come under the cherry tree with me
To rest within its moving pools of shade
And listen to the passing summer wind
High in the leaves.

Nearby, within her cot,
The baby sleeps, dreaming of lives unlived
And faces not yet seen. Hers is the time
Of total innocence, of rosebud promise
And of quiet content. Yours is the time,
When after fears and pain, come flooding joy
And peace and renewed motherhood.

14th August 1976

Saffron headlands

Saffron headlands, sweet
Almond smelling, alive with
Bees pollinating;
Blue glass water on shingle
Lapping, time lapping on me.

Oh that you could feel
This sun, breathe in this heavy
Air and see with me
The gorse afire on Beauport,
Golden in silence.

Jersey, 1966/1967