Spring is coming to a winter garden

Goldfinch dip down from the frosted bushes to perch on the feeder but the blackbirds ignore the bread thrown out on the lawn for them, only pausing to peck occasionally at a more tempting morsel. The scene resembles a teenage dance floor in a music-less interval. The boys chase the girls and see off other boys while the girls chase off unwanted boys and in their excitement even chase each other. In the overhanging oak, staid pigeons seated around the edge of the action, oversee the actors, monitoring each fluffing flutter and remembering with nostalgia the lost vitality of youth.

What matters?

Not where you've been
and what you've seen
nor who you've known
or what what you own
and certainly not what you've earned
but rather what you've learned.

Not your good looks
or published books;
not your physique
however sleek;
not what you've won
but what you've done
to make life fair
by what you share.

Not fine careers
all through the years
(respected names
untouched by blames),
not what you wear
but how you care
for others who
have need of you.


Not what you drive
or how contrive
the deals you make
and cuts you take;
not where you live
but what you give;
not how you live
or how you die
unless you question "Why?

Leda and the swan do not offend me
although their progeny were problematic;
if Midas' wife is happy being bullied,
it's not my business what makes her ecstatic;
but women should consider how their issue
affects the general gene pool of the race;
the minotaur warns how a loss of virtue
can cause a bigger problem than disgrace.
Presumably way back in ancient history
some silly girl could not resist the call
of amorous rodents which explains the mystery
of why there's genes of lemming in us all.

I hate old folks yet have to see them everywhere:
clogging up the buses, littering the parks,
impeding daytime shopping when they should be home in care.
They vacillate at ATMs and dawdle on the walkways;
their zimmer shopping trolleys cause a clutter in the cafes;
their shiny tortoise vehicles plough wide furrows in pedestrians
and looking in their faces you can see the kind of mess they're in.
I hate their sagging skin, their stooping postures, shuffling walks;
I hate their creaky movements, vapid gestures, halting talk;
I hate their dowdy clothes, their grey and thin, if any, hair
and all the things that start to fail with no hope of repair.
I hate the lack of beauty, any semblance of vitality
and hate to think that this will be my future as normality.
I hate to see what I will be (and probably am already).

Man's triumph is that he can think;
his tragedy - he knows he'll die.

" . . . some corner of a foreign field . . ." - RB

As I walked out one midsummer evening
away from the city and up on the Downs,
the sky was still blue and the sun still shining
and the warm air full of nature's sounds
of birds and bloody mosquitos whining.

Then a different sound from a nearby meadow !
A group of people were sprawled on the grass,
young adults playing guitar and fiddle
and one even singing and shuffling a dance
while children played Pig in the Middle.

An idyllic scene that I carried with me,
buoyed by the vision of family pleasure,
all through the work of the following week
till again I had time and weather and leisure
to hopefully take another peek.

Who knows ? Perhaps it wasn't those people
that left their litter there revealed.
Perhaps there had been some other string band
to spoil that corner of a non-foreign field
that is unfortunately England.

Just wait a little longer, Thomas Hardy:
the aspirin will thin your blood, not heart,
while further ageing further thins desire
as you try to get ready to depart.

Socrates spurned the throbbings of noontide,
grateful to be free from that indignity,
knowing they will in all of us subside
and leave the love of youthful beauty quite lust free.