Damsons
in the last of the long golden evenings
we shake the tree,
raining purple
onto falling leaves.
we crouch collecting,
leave powdered white-sweet-mould
for dying-summer-butterflies,
leave stoned drinking holes
for drowsy wasps to souse.
cross-legged by piles
I finger
the slippery sweet,
pinch the pip
squeeze pulped,
bruised flesh
till it bursts,
splits… Read more
Gratitude is a practice
When you wake up
and it is pouring with rain in August
and instead of reaching for your phone you get up, feed the cat, cover up in waterproofs and step outside to walk the same block you have walked for years
when as you walk and the rain taps the hood of your coat, … Read more
Joy
Sadness is a dark ink which pours, spills onto the page but
Joy is harder to write
it flutters in rainbows of diffuse light, moving, it doesn’t easily land, wants to keep on swirling, spiralling like pollen on the river, like mayflies as they bounce on springs of gossamer in the slow summer evenings.
Joy … Read more
Waiting in the hammock till midnight
Last night, while waiting to collect my son,
I snoozed in the hammock,
when the moon was a crescent and the
sun blued the sky until way past ten.
I hoped I would hear the owl call as he does in winter when I am blanketed in bed,
hoped I would hear the scratch … Read more
Leaving
Yesterday I went walking by this river in my lunch hour and thought about how lucky I am that I can walk, that I have the time, that I work somewhere so succulent and green and cool.
Where the air is sprinkled with bird song and the river is flickering light,
Where the rocks grow … Read more
Missing you
One moment I’m walking through the spring woods with a friend,
waiting for the bluebells to blue
talking of this and that as her dog sniffs and scoots,
when suddenly there are puddles with no wellies splashing
sticks which are no longer swords
trees which are not made into dens
and streams which are … Read more