Real Work

Our drive home was calm. All family

in back seats, chatting; and laughing. An orange sun

settling to earth and pillow clouds floating away against

a darkening blue.

Affable.

Earlier, Andrew

had refused to let anyone at dinner

rest or detach

until they were included.

‘All of us!!’ he loves to say and uses

tricks like I-spy or other

guessing games, singing - so that even the poor,

silent types who love disconnection

find it hard to avoid, without being rude.

It takes a remarkable act of will to include everyone

when some can’t really be bothered.

But now, with engine purring and sky darkening,

Andrew (the boy) sitting next to me, and family

laughing away in the back, is quiet.

And he is virtually never quiet!

But he looks at me sideways,

with a strange little smile

and time stops

and he nods a nod of knowing,

and I nod back, because we know

in our secret nodding club

he has done his work today;

his ineffable work of connection,

in play now,

in play.

Sands of Time

Onto shore

without end

horses roar

white tops bend

golden light

silver crowned

water fight

crash and grind

and my youth’s

furrowed brow

nature’s truth

splashes, ploughs;

lashes, squalls:

waterfalls.

God’s Anger

 One day my father said to the family

‘I’m finally gonna train that dog!’

and dragged our vibrant little Westie

out into a chill front room.

He batted its backside so hard

the dog skedaddled across the carpet;

a billiard ball bouncing off solid oak,

then turned on its belly, a crocodile.

‘Come here!’ he yelled and the little sod

had to crawl along freezing ground

to be yelped again across the room;

by volcano pulses of angry magma.

Age seven, I sat next door

deep in icy romance wondering,

wondering, wondering what the holy

King of Heaven suggested I should do.

Particle or Wave

An Einstein question.

When I walk towards a big wet puddle

in the road and a lorry heads on

towards me with a smiling driver

do I walk forward to risk a soaking

if he swerves in a chortling whoosh

or hold back in fear and in anguish,

afraid of a smile and a wave?

Gnats

go lively;

dance the riverbank

and two green plastic

chairs. Let’s guess –

several thousand insects? Fuzzy bills

chained by sunlight

into warm vortex

with a top

in the trees

and a sunlit edge

one meter wide (at the most)

where the whirling company is.

Only a few things matter;

to keep inside

this cylinder of warm light,

to mate,

  

the rest is not our business,

except  for Mozart

lilting and lifting,

weaving and intertwining

from my iPhone iTunes

and a glitter of

quickening sun on

myriad wings

and my projection of a dance

orchestrated as

show-time, glitter-time and spiraling jazz.

Mozart and Midges go lively.

Man on a Train

Talk to him? Not really!

That story will inevitably

bore and become a sly window to my

own internal mirror hall – impermanent

as plummeting carriages.

I guess this train has scuttled

North and South a thousand times

and seen a share of drama,

snow and tragedy. But could I simply

be here now and let it flow?

OK, I’ll talk to him, connect our

eyes and hear the story of his love life,

diet, working stresses, strains so we will

curtain with our storybook the foxes,

badgers, beauty flashing by.

Poise

Hey feet!

Two pins!!

What tricks?

Bedrock

the fact

your strong

aplomb

toddles

me on

so long.