THERE IS A PATH
There is a path goes right across a field,
high across the middle of a nothing sort of field,
a field of mostly grass.
I am here today,
buffeted, hearing
nothing but the blowing
till I turn away,
and hear the quiet thunder of a distant aeroplane
drifting into grey,
while all the time and all around
busy songs of birds
rise from the ground.
I can see behind
two school towers,
red, black, over green trees;
ahead, a church’s only tower,
closer,
nestled in by trees bringing out the grey;
right, the downs going blue;
left, a line of brown houses,
sounds of building too.
Under me, mud gives to the push of a thumb,
leaving an impression? Yes,
but not where I press,
on the thumb itself, the mud
showing up contours of the skin,
the incline made by a pencil pressing in,
while all the time and all around
busy songs of birds
rise from the ground.
EVENING BIRCH
The top half
is in a different world,
warm with sun.
Wind grows ice,
as leaf by leaf the light
disappears
always up.
As high-leaf branches wave
wailingly,
suddenly
that world is gone, leaving
all same green.
Centre top,
still standing as it sways
moved by winds,
hurricanes,
a branch is tree itself
young with leaf,
separate
yet one with this tree’s trunk
unmoving.
DARK BEFORE DAWN
Unasleep,
unlikely to sleep,
with both eyes shut,
with nothing to see,
still look to find
whatever there is
behind my lids –
see nothing,
nothing,
until I focus in on something very far,
small,
dark,
sending out flames –
my own burning star.
SOMEONE HAS CARVED
Someone has carved a seat out of wood,
where a copse has been cut back,
almost like a kind of joke,
someone showing that he could.
Come in close, you will see
how the shape of it is cut
out of what
remains of a tree.
Straight back, arm rests,
it almost is an armchair,
backing onto where
a white sun sets.
Would you sit in it?
There’s fungus,
and worse,
the seat will make you wet,
give nothing in return.
I do,
though
not sitting down
totally,
finding it
a snug fit
tailor-made for me.
As a chill
rises within,
I find I’m shown
sunlight still
touching tops of trees;
higher,
together,
all the sky’s
clouds going right
over light blue;
below,
a wall clean and white;
above,
under-wings of birds, a pair
up in the air,
trying to move.
I watch them battling,
let the seat
take my weight,
hear a trilling
like water spilling,
and what I see
is a dead tree
singing.
olivermarlowpoetry.com 