It made my day !

I've lived in the same house some decades.

House martins used to build their nests

mud balled above the bedroom windows.

The stream behind the house had sticklebacks

and therefore occasional kingfishers.

Water voles used to swim in the stream

tunneling their nests into the banks.

But the stream was canalised to stop it flooding.

The martins couldn't glue to plastic.

And all that wildlife vanished.

But the frogs still spawn in the nearby meadow

and I always fetch some spawn or tadpoles

to my garden pond (as others do)

before the scrape dries up (quite often)

and all the tadpoles there die.

Frogs are clearly still surviving

and I have found one occasionally

hiding on my council allotment

across the other side of the stream.

But today was quite a wildlife special.

Never before have I found there

a newt.

It made my day.

Mediocrity

Preposterous art, pretentious poems,

potboiler novels, repetitive songs

are routine products of creative minds

that can't make masterpieces every time.

What is the English national flower?

Though roses look and smell so beautiful,

truly aristocrats of flowers,

perhaps something more representative,

more able to weather stormy showers,

a bit more common and down to earth

might be more appropriate as ours -

dandelion or daisy ?

Plenty of fish

Sure, so there's plenty of fish in the sea

but that doesn't mean there's any for me.

Sure, what I catch will depend on my bait

but nothing so far has reached my plate.

I've had lots of nibbles but nothing biting,

curious circling but nothing striking.

I might do better if I could use wealth

but I'll be lucky to even use health.

I could try deceit and mention youth

but some-one would soon discover the truth.

I can't use fame with an unknown name

and as for humour, it's only a rumour.

No matter how much I trawl the web

I fear I'm just too much of a pleb.

Pavlov

We're more and more like Pavlov's dogs

conditioned to salivate at the sight of

palm trees fringing golden beaches

and flaming  sun orbs dipping blue seas.

The thought of hotels dripping with drinks,

and magical menus makes us seize

the latest, once-in-a-lifetime offer

making us go quite weak at the knees.

We all need some sort of treat for the future

so that's the very thing that he's

got lined up for the months ahead

but "Where is the money coming from, please ?"

Seagulls

Although we're fifteen miles from the sea,

seagulls are flying here aerobatically  -

gliding, swooping, banking, turning,

a display as if the sky is gurning.

They must find food around the town

but what do they do when the sun goes down ?

Fly back to sleep on the beach or pier

or stay and roost on the rooftops here ?

Self awareness

One devastating drawback of intelligence 

is self awareness of our own inadequacies.

Unless we make world champion in this or that

or grab some fame for something praiseworthy,

we'll sometimes be confronted by the queasy feeling

of not being quite as great as we would like to be.

Physical appearance often gives concern

and different people deal with it in different ways.

Women can use make-up, beauty treatment, clothes

but my heart bleeds for those doomed ugly all their days.

Men can use their skill at sport to boost their ego

or manufacture macho sporting their tatoos.

Wealth and power don't fear inferiority

though insecurity may haunt what they might lose.

As for the young of either sex there's time enough

for optimistic hope to rectify their woes

and always possible partners helping overcome

or overlook their problems as time goes.

But it's the old where self-awareness strikes the hardest,

when failing powers can't help but tell that all's not well.

Then weaknesses must be acknowledged gracefully

but after all that time  -  so what the hell  !