Coucher de soleil

This poem is inspired by the artwork of a very talented rising star, Nell Rogers. I hope to post more of her work in the future.

Coucher de soleil

There are waves between us and so many sunsets,
songs fire-hued, ripple across the years,
voices long-dead only half-remembered,
and how do I tell you stories you cannot see?

Suns set in the falling rain, colour of fire and roosting birds,
and still I hear those voices, calm and eternal as cliff-top cairns
weighted with lichen and the heavy touch of the aos sí,
the last sight of home from the trough of white waves.

I hear, and you draw in the threads,
the ship rocked beyond returning,
you and I both in the light of so many sunsets,
listen to the gentle songs of sleepy birds,
recall the wind’s song among grey sea-bound stones.

Morning by the river

Morning by the river

Did the sun? Palely perhaps,
a faint foil silveryness through dove-grey cloud,
not enough to colour, tints misted and watered,
the flood plain waiting on the swollen rivers,
brown with muddy run-off.

Morning of uncoloured palettes,
drop-dripping, birds flocking, crows,
and so many herons,

the couple on their plot,
apples and nuts collected, chickens,
limping fig leaves untidy as death,
conversing about Medieval history, dogs,
climate change, the flood,
imminent, or not, a shrug, maybe.

Now the sun was,
no colour this damp dusk,
but another collection of wisdoms, leaves,
and setting foot on dykes that still hold.

Poppies

How the poppies glow! Baked earth scorches, brown-stalked, criss-crossed with tracks. Smell of fox. A clump of cottony hair, and a hare crops grass high on the ridge. Crows shout commands to unseen troops, kites scream like whizz-bangs, and the poppies burn. A lone oak remembers cows and green pasture, the pond, in deep shrouds, shaded and sheltered by willows and dogwood, plum, cherry and medlars, remembers hooves on muddy banks. Fox comes now and hares, tunnelling though the bramble brakes. Kites scream remembering nothing of any interest, and the poppy-blaze spreads year after year.