Seasons Realised                                             1/12/92

Like the unfurling petals

Of the spring flowers

I feel the progress

Of sunshine, approaching.

I stay silent

As though in a dream

Words only being transitory

Become quite useless

Lifting the heavy leaves

Of autumn

Storing the energy

Of a million rays of sun

I give a voice.

The language being attuned

To the warmth

And radiance of summer.

The light

Is cool when time is ignored

The feel of winter

Entering the mind

When the turning away

Slows time to a gradual halt

It’s as if fast time

Generates heat

No one notices it at all

It’s as though

The clouds hold secrets

That no one wants to hear about

Very like petals

When they close up at night

Hiding their heart

Everybody brushing the flowers aside.

Foolish people

With pride and honour

As their credits cards

Help them fly from crisis

To boredom In split seconds

No use waiting for the monthly statement

Because our seasonal Journey

Takes us many miles away from here.

II

The trees where knowledge is stored

Stand where they ought

They guard the weakest of souls

Do so in rapid and routine thought.

To take root

Play with the tangle of time

Is like using an abacus to calculate a journey to Mars

But to take the idea seriously

Is like wanting Eric Morecombe

To rescue Ernie Wise.

When I watch the birds in their daily exercise

I’m reminded of hazy glades

That still the silence

Moves my mountain of arrogance

Ever nearer the edge of a cliff

I never wanted a large baggage to shift

Nor was I willing

to sail into heavenly bliss.