My Star Watcher

                        Old couple

That couple on the sofa; do not stare.

So much together everyone can see

they are in love despite the thinning hair

and silvered season. Touching knee to knee!

The brightest are the flowers of the spring

that come upon the margins of the snow

when winter winds begin to lose their sting

and icy fingers melt to let them grow.

But Aphrodite when she's asked to choose,

to make a potion for a lover's spell,

picks Autumn flowers, rich in rounded hues,

in sensual stimulants and carnal smells.

Like  flowers of the autumn, feeding bees,

old couple on the sofa, linger please.

My Star Watcher

The Star Watcher, Goddess of Kindness,

is entertained by wild birds:

the black, the blue, the great, the green, the gold,

the paddlers, the passerines and all.

She sits by day

to see them eat her seeds.

She sits in the still night

waiting for galaxies to reveal themselves.

She sits in the sun

while painted ladies dine on ivy blooms

and if I ever loved

then I love her.


 A spray of roses

You have cheered me with a rose

when I was feeling low and grey.

Now that I know what flower grows

about your feet I send a spray

of fresh ones, not for any grace

that they could lend your hair, your ear,

for you enhance the rose's face,

but when I grieved  you brought me cheer.


 Sculler's Song

Sculls cut water with a sigh;

their dimpled whirlpools circle by;

with just a swish,

smooth as a fish,

as quiet as a lullaby.

Sliding forward, sliding back

on a true and narrow rack

I balance on the water's skin,

upon a shell that's paper-thin;

enough to wrap a sculler in.

What's to come is hard to see;

the past lies to the front of me.

I turn to spy

with half an eye

to find behind what is to be.

And so I do not prophesy.

I only skim the waves and try

by otter or by dolphin track,

by willow or the salt sea-wrack,

to pull the sculls and lay them back.

Old Men Are Never What They Seem To Be

I watched an old man finishing a chair
new-made of beech from some windfallen tree
with dowels and tenons all set fair and square;
no nail, no screw, entirely metal free.
You might have thought pure timber was his trade.
Beneath the seat he stamped his name, the date
and sat to sample what his hands had made.
I fell to wondering upon its fate
when frail of worm or rot, bound up with wire,
it failed to hold against some fat man's weight
and found its destiny upon the fire 
among the morning ashes in the grate.
Old men are never what they seem to be
and what's to come comes from their history.