The pomegranates
are ripe on the tree
across the road
and the swallows
are skimming beneath the power lines
and the soft blue sky
The washing on the balcony rail is dry
The village dogs bark
Church bells summon summer in
and the early morning peace
is broken as a tractor heads for the fields
The sun heats the soft grey
feathers on the pigeon’s back
and he leaves his chimney perch
abo...

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Hanging in the shed

Are four dead pheasants and a woodcock

On a makeshift table

Some half-eaten sandwiches and a thermos

A drab green waterproof

Hangs on a nail above some boots and drips

The man sits talking to a friend

And rubbing his damp hair with an old towel

Outside dogs are sniffing around the cars

Ignoring the rain one man is hunched over his ...

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I rejoice to see that old wood five-bar gate

that still stands guard beneath the ancient beech

to a field sloping gently down the hill.

The gate from an old farm track - now lost to time -

has seen so many seasons, so many harvests pass

and must have known an age of scythes and stooks

of horse drawn harrows, ploughs and wooden carts.

What could it tell of the village...

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The soft blown snow that fell five days ago

Crisp frozen now by these five frosty nights

Still blankets all the fields and moors to show

Where pheasant clattered off on noisy flights

While footfall of the lesser birds is scribed

Less deep; and here a small bank vole has run;

There passed red fox and rabbit side by side

Though time kept them apart and saved the one

At the wo...

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"Heavy Snow in Wales": 30th January 2019

A sheet of pure white covers her face: that land I thought I knew

frozen beneath its covering, buried ever deeper in its icy tomb

the contours I know so well:

every dip and valley; hill and gully

smoothed by this mantling shroud that descended

as time slipped slowly away, locking us in its white eternity

One last frozen tear d...

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Below the incurious sheep on the hill

                that stare at me as they endlessly chew

The sun is warm and I perch on a stone to watch quietly

As it is reflected off the surface of the lake:

                the part not covered with pond weed

                where flies dip and buzz

                dragonflies and damselflies dart

                     and hover:

    ...

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As I pass beyond my summer wall

Once more the land embraces my spirit

And its silence becomes my prayer

While I and heaven hear

The wind whispered psalm

As dusk caresses the tree tops

That surround my field fane -

I walk slowly through its grassy nave

Lost in my old memories

And pause at the far gate:

The sun sinks low behind me

And my long shadow stretches out in ...

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The thick ice on the pond is dimpled on its face:

The same snow that coated the field

Had landed on the frozen pool to yield

To ice its fragile beauty and feather grace

As dents

Body gone, only the skeleton of the snow is left:

The same snow that covered all around

Has lost its substance to the earthy mound

But dull white bones still haunt Spring's heft

As wraiths

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For Gwen, Anne and Eryl

In that happy heady grass-green Spring of my years

A time of lambent lamb slow lamb full days around a whited cottage

Lent us space and ease beneath the sun long sky

Golden glorious hours together in a single thought

With close chicken scrape and distant herd

When the swallows dipped to the fly buzz

When the kite climbed to a gliding speck

     ...

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