Material for myth

I rest and raise my head from a session of winter digging.

It isn't really cold but still my nose is dripping.

It's damp and growing dark. Eastward the the wind is rolling

a grey duvet of cloud across a bare hill's muscled shoulder;

westward is a skyline of skeletal trees resembling

a distant platoon of ragged soldiers surrendering.

A single seagull tacks across the wind spiralling

arabesques on the sky. Now a flotilla of more gulls

appears, a wind blown bluster of white leaves whirling.

Then I hear a call. I know the sound. Like a mewing

animal. I search the sky. There. High up, circling

around each other. Not animals but birds. Buzzards.

Three of them dancing the air, continually calling.

And now two more fly in to join them, all five ascending

towards the clouds. Five ! Surely they must stop rising

now. They are almost into the bottom of the cloud.

But no. One by one they disappear into the grey fluff.

I wait for them to re-appear. Nothing. I keep watching.

Still no sign of them. Eventually I tire of waiting,

shoulder my spade and start to walk home wondering

what an earlier, more superstitious age would have made

of the event. Some secret place in the clouds welcoming

the birds home? An avian country ? A kingdom of buzzards?

A day in May, weekend in June

and weeks in April very soon

were distant memories in view

of all the rest of life in you.

When I also certainly die,

I will have all eternity

to patiently, carefully search for you

floating somewhere among the stars.

GIRLS NIGHT OUT

The photos will show them smiling, laughing at the phone,

these clustered women embracing the weekend evening

together at the disco, families left at home,

reviving the tingle of teenage dreaming.

The videos will show them dancing together while a stream

of men flows past, sometimes splashing a glance

of interest at their antics which perhaps may seem

inviting some sort of dalliance dance.

But any sort of misbehaviour seems out of place,

young daring ceding to mid-life propriety.

That this can happen regardless of race

is tribute to British open society.

Tweets 26

A little child skipping in the rain

ignoring the bleakness outside

by the sunshine within. 

Sheep may safely graze.

TV obesity.

MOVEMENTS ON THE ALLOTMENTS

no longer a crow int the corner of my eye

or a cocky jackdaw jigging by;

not a smart magpie hopefully tapping

but only sheets of black plastic flapping

We humans are very inventive.

We can come up with multiple reasons why we did what we did

and one, even some, of them may be correct.

Childhood is adorable;

youth is beautiful.

TWO VERSIONS

How does it work?  That's one of Nature's mysteries.  (poetic)

How does it work?  We don't yet know.  (scientific)

THE LIVING YEARS

The first two decades were childhood, waiting;

the last two were old age, life abating;

but the middle four were the meaning of life -

procreation, kids with wife.

EPSTEIN VICTIMS or DUPES ? ?

Not kidnapped, drugged, assaulted, raped.

Seduced indeed but not by men.

Instead by a life of luxury shaped

to partnering famous men.