Wishing you a
healthy and happy
year ahead
January
Lunch in London and Lisson Gallery.
Found Art in the polished grain of a tree.
February
At the wildlife reserve of Hosehill Lake
Widgeon, Rail and Grebe take a winter break.
I wait for hours in the hide,
But just one duck is espied,
At the wildlife reserve of No-bills Lake.
March
Gardener woc set off with bags and spade
To dig manure from the big mound nearby.
The sun was out after much rain cascade,
So the ground was slippy but woc was spry.
He dug until his strength started to fade
But six sodden bags made him one proud guy.
Lifting heavy bags with feet not secure
He fell back in the mud under manure.
April
The limping pigeon
Rests in the disabled space.
Harmony in grey.
Camouflaged bird on the ground,
Will the rushing driver see?
May
Oxalis corniculata– you creeping weed!
Why in my garden do you spread at speed?
Copper-green leaves, yellow flowers so pretty
Makes ousting you from beds such a pity.
June
I could walk on stones with bare skin
When I was young.
Though jibes and harsh words would sink in
I could walk on stones with bare skin.
Old age finds the dermis is thin
Though I am steel to the mean tongue.
I could walk on stones with bare skin
When I was young.
July
A riverside walk for the scenery,
It’s bright flowers, the Thames, I mostly see.
There as always, old texture and structure.
Found Art in the bark of a weathered tree.
August
My friends are gone. All fallen, bruised, and not seen
In the nettles. Ignored on our tree of life,
Too hard to get, not packaged. Brave the nettles
And pluck me. Eat me.
September
Ten years or more, my front and back gardens
Have borne fruit and veg from the fourteen beds.
From peas to potatoes, fine specimens
That scrubbed up well to become tasty spreads.
Concerns over the Earth’s environment,
Aired in the media almost every day,
And seeing for myself, made me hell-bent
To do something in whatever small way.
Bought flower seeds good for bees, butterflies.
Raised them in cells as I had with the veg.
Planted out front where they raced to the skies,
A tumble of colours from edge to edge.
I smile with joy, my patch a wilder kind.
But it’s not for the neaten-Nature mind.
October
Little Willie had a rucksack.
It was thirty years on his back.
Sewn, glued and patched over those years,
When a seam split he was in tears.
November
In tomato soup
imagination is fed
in swirls of yogurt.
December
To build a supposedly “smart” M4
The dumb planners have razed the earth for miles.
Hedgerows, bushes, and trees exist no more,
Our horizon is concrete, bricks and tiles.
We all need to see this route is cockeyed
And must cross the bridge to the other side.
Ends.
wocNotes 