Bees

Now threatened, every bee
on the lavender bush
is a gift, small hint of life,
sunshine, golden jars
of honey to come.

The Past

The past is more than one other country.

Here's one I walked in, alone, so no one

I know remembers the heat or which way to go.

Yesterday, I revisited another country

through talk with a man from a third -

those days are mine alone although maybe I passed

his father there, walking slowly through deep snow.

Grey, grey

Grey, grey, here to stay

Hasn't heard of other days

Grey, grey, won't go away

Grey - tell me what you've got to say.

Small Garden

Yesterday, Cornwall felt small

the house too small, my life

too small. I went into my small

backyard and photographed

small flowers - just pinks in a pot -

each one a miracle, a universe.

Granite

Where we see cliffs and permanance
she saw possibility and change

Where we see labour beyond endurance
she saw what three people, a wheelbarrow
and vision could do

When she leant, tall, gaunt, almost ninety
against the theatre she'd made
light suffused her - that's the light I long for.

Blue

Trebah

Three acres of hydrangeas

tumble down the valley -

their purpose is turning rain

into flowering bundles of blue

letting loose their brief beauty

so we pass by, smiling, tipsy with blue.

Waves

Last night I dreamed
a child and I were sent
to retrieve a frozen statue.
I saw a tsunami coming our way -
a mighty grey wave - I stood a chance,
with a rail to hold on tight to -
the boy, I knew, would be gone -
I held and waited, waited and held -
the wave just melted away
into air and the usual sway of the sea -
leaving us unharmed, the boy and me.

Home, again, again

Slipping

The seventh month slipping by,
me slipping in and out of my life,
half lived here, half lived there
in slipstreams mostly sliding by -
the river's course flows elsewhere.