Supermarket incident

We reached the zebra crossing together,
two young guys and me.
They were intent on crossing the road
just where I happened to be
walking along with my weekly shop.
In a car of course I would certainly stop
but must I give way with a trolley ?

Something bumped the window

in a flurry of feathers
and in the back garden

a black and white streak

saw a magpie fly off

with a sparrow in its beak.

"Every death is a tragedy" she said
about the current coronavirus.
"Black lives matter" the banners read
but not just black since all lives matter.
Just not all equally though. Instead
age matters more than colour
for staying alive or being dead.
One crucial point to bear in mind
concerns what future would be wasted
by a death. For those very old
who've had long lives already,
dying is always imminent
with little future left ahead.
Of course few people want to die
and it's very sad if old folk dread
the end of life. But ignoring the young
and their future is to be mislead.
Death may be sometimes a release
when the scissors of fate cut the thread.

A teenage gang of fish in the stream
floating where the sun shone.
Someone slammed the door of the shed.
A pulse of tail. Gone.

It's taken many years for me
to learn to lick my knife
and brave it out in company
despite a frowning wife

not with the aim of being rude
or trying to annoy
or any help in eating food
and certainly no joy

at others' outrage (What a fool !)
but just to give a hand
in doubting ideas learned by rule
that we don't understand.

I don't believe I'd cut my tongue,
not even if I tried,
so why was it my parents clung
to custom as a guide?

When someone told me, young and shy,
you can't wear green with blue,
despite the grass and summer sky
I thought it must be true.

Or rather didn't think at all,
just did what others do
but now I'm older comes the call
to question things  -  and you ?

"Don't look back. Never look back."
The problem being what you lack.
The joy remembering may well cost
more sadness seeing what you've lost.

Which feature of flowers is most attractive?

The size and shape of petals perhaps

but surely most would say the colour.

The vibrant variety of hues and shades

provides us with continual pleasure

so who would want to make them duller?

Is it the human need for novelty

or else the human greed for gain

that tries to use Man's ingenuity

to develop a black tulip?