TIME OUT

Time out for Reynard.
He’ll just wait.
Eyeing up those chickens
To seal their fate

Time out, but wary,
On the qui vive.
Fodder for his family
Just about to thieve.

Time out for him now,
Night’s work done.
Taking a siesta
In the sun.

Say what you will, but
The urban fox,
Is part of Nature’s spectrum,
Not unorthodox.

Photographs taken in a Surrey garden … WHB: 2015-17

The Eagle’ … Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Head of a Bald Eagle … Pen & Ink – WHB : May 2017

The Eagle

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,

Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

He watches from his mountain walls,

And like a thunderbolt he falls.

BY  Alfred, Lord Tennyson

A poem, by Alfred Lord Tennyson, with great dynamism.  Short but so effectively expressed.   The adjectives are just right.  The words, metre, alliteration and rhymes work together to convey the essence of the eagle’s power and majesty.

EBB TIDE

‘Ebb Tide’ … WHB – 2017

EBB TIDE

The tide turns

As for me it wanes
I feel your presence

There
Where
For you
It begins
Its encroachment
Knowing you will be there
To welcome it’s  return
To follow its path
Waiting
Watching
Until bite by bite
Ripple by ripple
It will wash your words
Across oceans
To my shore

Here
Where
My foot printed
Passage
Replicates your own
And signs itself
With love

But in turn
That will come
For you
Too
And my own shells
Of words
Will flow
And flood
Where your bare feet
Choose to follow

There is a beautiful song, composed by the American songwriter, Carl Sigman, called ‘EBB TIDE’.  I came across this beautiful and moving rendering of it by my favourite male voice a capella choir, The Westminster Chorus,.  i have brought these to your attention in a previous blog.   please do listen to their version of ‘Ebb Tide’ at this YouTube link …Click here to watch and listen.

THE SUBSERVIENT MOON

THE SUBSERVIENT MOON

Each day
The rising sun
chases the moon away
To hide its limpid light
From the brightness of day.
Cowed in its lair
Within the darkness
Of its sylvan hideaway,
Preferring to lie
With the leaves
And squirrels
And, as Clytie,
Watch the skies,
Following Helios’s chariot,
Gazing as he
Arcs the heavens,
Jealous of his power,
Fearful of his revenge
Were she ever to show her face
In his presence.
Ever allowing her nemesis
To hold sway
Over the new day,
Commanding the attention of the world
And continuing his journey;
The dominant presence
In the cerulean sky.

When is the moon not a moon? 
… When it’s the sun in a circular mirror. 

The three photographs are of a reflection in a window of daylight, itself reflected in a circular mirror and back onto the glass of the window.
All photographs by me – March 2017 … Roland (WHB) 

Spring In Autumn

‘Apple Blossom’ Surrey, England  . . .  Photo – WHB – April 2017

SPRING IN AUTUMN

The apple blossom curls against my window

Promising its fruit as it unfurls;

Its pink and white against the burgeoning greenness

Sing, as my mind around them swirls.

For all the beauty I behold in nature

Summates in this the spring of my old age,

And promises the gift of lasting vision;

My passing will not be in futile rage.

‘Apple Blossom’ Surrey, England  . . .  Photos – WHB – April 2017

Ancient ice

‘The Ice Fiord’ – Greenland Photo: WHB …2008

ancient ice
increasingly
encircles
as we move
silently
with stealth
into the ice fiord
hesitantly making a
zig-zag passage
towards the unstable
terminus
of the glacier
as it erodes
into the ocean’s edge

increasingly
smotheringly
enclosed by
walls of white and blue
immense
ridge-flanked
jagged-backed
menacingly still
a maze through which
the miniscule craft
threads a passage
towards the minotaur
the glacier’s lowering face
as it crumbles
tumbles
its fronting phalanx
fragmenting
with the occasional
sudden grinding cracking
turmoil
of yet another frozen offshoot
adding to the welter
the crowded pack of
new-born creatures
as the ice mass breaks and
calves
to join the myriad
of off-spring
in the ice ocean

Tu Fu

Tu Fu ( or Du Fu), who was born in Gongyi in 712 A.D., was one of the foremost poets of the Chinese Tang dynasty. He and Li Bai, are normally thought of as the greatest of all Chinese poets. He died in Changsha, China, in 770 A.D.

I print below, two of his poems, both, as the majority of his poems,  exemplify his intense relationship with nature, wildlife, and with the seasons, even amidst the turmoil of the times in which he lived.

(Both designs are my own pen and wash drawings in an attempt at capturing a Chinese style.)

A Spring View

Though a country be sundered, hills and rivers endure;
And spring comes green again to trees and grasses
Where petals have been shed like tears
And lonely birds have sung their grief.
… After the war-fires of three months,
One message from home is worth a ton of gold.
… I stroke my white hair. It has grown too thin
To hold the hairpins any more.

A View of Taishan

What shall I say of the Great Peak? –
The ancient dukedoms are everywhere green,
Inspired and stirred by the breath of creation,
With the Twin Forces balancing day and night.
…I bare my breast toward opening clouds,
I strain my sight after birds flying home.
When shall I reach the top and hold
All mountains in a single glance?

The HARE

‘The Hare’ . . . Watercolour – WHB : 1987

In his refuge

As the sun sets

The hare

Waits;

Dusk

Is its hour, 

Its time to brave

The beagle’s

Bark and

Bitter bite

To leave his form

And risk

Life again –

For

Continuity. 

The Morning Sun

 
‘Morning Sun’ … Pen & Wash – WHB. 2017

When the morning sun

Burns through the dusk

Of the night’s demise

And at last

The backside of the night

Is breached

A new day is born

And morning introduces its prospects

Promising a fresh start

A renewal of hope

Countermanding

Yesterday’s disappointments

And the night’s terrors

Now bringing a sense of peace

A stillness

Allowing strength to gather

And defy the uncertainties

Of a new day.

THE LYNX

‘The Lynx’ … Pen & Wash – WHB 1992

THE LYNX

A wildcat
bobcat
Canadian Lynx;
hungry
luminescent eyes
pierce the grasses
as,
crouched in the undergrowth,
I stalk my prey.

Throbbing,
from black-tipped
triangular ears
to black-tipped
stubby tail,
with the
intensity of my need.

Prowling,
seeking hares,
favourites,
but any small mammal,
a life for a life
to keep me alive.

Will it happen tonight?
will my own world end first?
either way
a solution.
Nature’s resolution.

.Lynx … Pen – WHB: 1983