The Spring Bonus

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You promise a delicious bonus
I wonder what joy that could bring
Perhaps, being a tell-tale romantic,
And allowing conjecture to sing, 
A cruise on a tropical ocean, 
Where mermen and mermaids will bring
Their wisdom, their unceasing love songs, 
To promise delight in the spring.

 

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Spring Lives – A Reverse Cinquain

 

Photo by Jacek Mleczek on Pexels.com

New Life –

Daffodils burst from gracious earth

Golden in their splendour

Spilling their joy

– Spring Lives

 

 Reverse Cinquain:  Simply a Crapsey Cinquain in which the syllable count appears in reverse order. Adelaide Crapsey’s cinquains utilized a syllable count of 2-4-6-8-2. Therefore, the syllable count of the Reverse Cinquain is 2-8-6-4-2.

Composed in response to Abigail Gronway’s Challenge: at: https://darksideofthemoon583.com/2019/03/08/5-line-poem-challenge-6-reverse-cinquain/

As The Year Ends

WHB … Pen & Ink – 1988

Dark the swollen river runs
Under the bridge’s shades of grey.
Slate sky condemns the passive scene
Draining colour from the day.

Tree silhouettes outline my view
Their winter ribs bared to the frost
December bids the old year gone
With no regrets for what is lost. 

The year expires; bid it goodbye, 
It brought distress, re-kindled fears,
It promised much it failed to give,
Left little hope and many tears.

So now, in hope of better times,
Tomorrow holds the future’s key.
New perspectives flood my view
Blue skies as far as I can see.

 

Once Upon an Autumn

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In the land that love forgot
lit by the light of an autumn moon
Memory stirred and held a thought
of those once upon a time days
When roses
rich with red
scented days with hope
Wind-strewn days with fallen apple
air fresh with suckled honey
When once You and I loved
smitten
immersed in this infinity
enamoured
Longing
in those autumn days
Regaining in their wistful hours
what summer once had brought us 
All now lost in time’s story
But always and forever 
written on memory’s scroll. 

 

Winter Haiku

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As darkness descends

Nature catches breath and sleeps

Awaiting rebirth

 

 

The Hills of my Childhood

On the N.Yorkshire Moors – Pen & Ink … WHB

The Hills of my Childhood

 

The hills of my childhood
Mountains to me
Remain in my memory
And still I can see

Their contours throbbing
Against the bright sky
Promising thrills
With every sigh.

I climbed, scrambled upwards
To grasp what they pledged
In heedless delight
My keenness knife-edged.

The summit had beckoned
Becoming my mission
My reason for living
My only ambition.

And as my heart pounded,
As upwards I raced,
It presaged my future,
The world that I faced.

To view from the summit
The expanse of my world
Was a glimpse of hereafter
Forever unfurled.

‘Trees’ . . . Joyce Kilmer

[  # 99 of My Favourite Short Poems  ]

Tree Roots at Claremont Gardens, Surrey – WHB   ©

 

Trees

By: Joyce Kilmer

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

Notes:  (From Wikipedia):

Joyce Kilmer (born as Alfred Joyce Kilmer; December 6, 1886 – July 30, 1918) was an American writer and poet mainly remembered for a short poem titled “Trees” (1913), which was published in the collection Trees and Other Poems in 1914. Though a prolific poet whose works celebrated the common beauty of the natural world as well as his Roman Catholic religious faith, Kilmer was also a journalist, literary critic, lecturer, and editor. While most of his works are largely unknown, a select few of his poems remain popular and are published frequently in anthologies. Several critics—including both Kilmer’s contemporaries and modern scholars—have disparaged Kilmer’s work as being too simple and overly sentimental, and suggested that his style was far too traditional, even archaic. Many writers, including notably Ogden Nash, have parodied Kilmer’s work and style—as attested by the many parodies of “Trees”.

At the time of his deployment to Europe during World War I, Kilmer was considered the leading American Roman Catholic poet and lecturer of his generation, whom critics often compared to British contemporaries  G.K.Chesterton (1874–1936) and Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953). He enlisted in the New York National Guard and was deployed to France with the  69th Infantry regiment (the famous “Fighting 69th”) in 1917. He was killed by a sniper’s bullet at the Second Battle of the Marne in 1918 at the age of 31. He was married to Aline Murray, also an accomplished poet and author, with whom he had five children.

RHS Wisley . . . Summertime

[  Photo Gallery # 103  ]

The Royal Horticultural Society’s garden at Wisley in the English county of Surrey, south of London, is one of four gardens run by the Society.  It may be unseasonal, but my Photo Gallery today takes me back to a visit there in Summertime ten years ago.  Following last week’s photographs of Spring in these gardens I give below some of my photographs taken 4 months later.

RHS Wisley . . . Springtime

[ Photo Gallery  # 102 ]

The Royal Horticultural Society’s garden at Wisley in the English county of Surrey, south of London, is one of four gardens run by the Society.  It may be unseasonal, but my Photo Gallery today takes me back to a visit there in Springtime ten years ago.  I accept that these are formal arrangements, but it is still a delight to view the brilliant colours of both daffodils and tulips – a delightful reminder of what Spring brings every year.

 

 

Mermaid

Pen & Wash . . . WHB – March 2017

 

 

She stood beyond the water and the wave;

She promised to be all that I did crave,

But a glimpse was all she granted me

Before I lost her to the sunset and the sea.