gracious sun and first butterflies
yellow and brown
water as bright as silver foil
nettles bite with fresh venom of spring and heat
and one's life rejoices
just for the day

it is quiet
insects, sleeping birds, a few insects hitting the sides of the barn
a himmer of things miraging up
colours bleach in the light
and I choose shadow

glance up
a magpie's white wing tips slide sideways
into the small leaved as yet ungreen trees
like a flicker
it is so hot

Did not even notice the young one

it is the air
listening to the air
to the low link of ether to earth
to the sky diving clouds
to the arc of a dancing plane
to the skid of heavy handed weather
to the invisible rhythm
I see a mission-
the element of air
to the birds
to looking up
to the wildflower
outsider of beauty
for the weather air brings and my bearing it
for the time contemplation takes
for the crow's lurching shriek
gentle ripple journey chaffinches skirting over the hawthorn tree as if it were a silk nightgown
moving grace
I went on a breath pilgrimage
I live in air
my own electricity
my own book of knowledge
my own cup of tea
my own landscape
dissolving into air and reforming

the shelter of a boned leaf
aired and feathered
the drift of down
on a meadow
signalling massacre
yet poetic

there is a tap of air that when I untwist
contours my world
solitude breaths

March 24 questions

are the daffodils too bright?
does anyone ever want to cut down a tree?
-the silver birch hunks wait disconsolately by the road
does someone practice their call over and over, is it some sort of training?
is that waving leaf on long stem flagging the fleeing moves of a mouse?
and yes, that was a grass snake sliding into sun in a deep hedge
and is it first of the year?
That moss peak in the dull meadow, a minuature bog man's lair?

an open door, wet bootmarks near the barn the only place still dewed
heart attackingly close, two birds fall out of the roof above my head
 battering ram noise as they fight, then burst apart
 fly off in a rampage

I was getting inside the rhythm of the continually shouting voice
how can it call so often?
is it to a sheepdog, or  calling for a lost dog over and over
I am beginning to think so
the voice is clearer 'Tilly'
and finally I meet the caller
a blue grey whippet he has been calling for two hours
he hopes she is somewhere in the woods
but a held desperation accompanies the seesaw call
two hours he says
and sorry to disturb

march 19 Christina and Finn's 18th birthday

barn and Hoagy

primroses

March 8 Sarah & Judith

feb 26

just a moment to be here
blue light on water
fuzz on hawthorn
chainsaw groan
dock leaves and nettles
starting to grow