My Bird Of Paradise

When I awoke and drew the blinds
One bright and sunny day
A sight awaited my poor eyes
Which filled me with dismay.

When looking out my bedroom window
I’ve never before found
Something which has so puzzled me
It truly did astound.

Exotic birds do not frequent
My garden usually
But yesterday I gazed at one
Amazed – excusably.

Was it a bird of ill omen
Sent to cause me worry
I told myself, “I doubt that much,
At least not here in Surrey.”

Perhaps a Bird of Paradise
Had managed to break free
From its New Guinea jungle home
And come to delight me.

Maybe a Rainbow Lorikeet
Toucan or Golden Pheasant
Peacock or a Red Macaw
Sent here as a present.

I was quite mystified you see
Until this afternoon
The gardener came, looked up and said,
“It’s an escaped balloon.”

I was quite mortified to find
I had not recognised
My own discarded birthday gift.
… I’m so demoralised.

Photos: WHB – Surrey – 2016

CRICKET … LOVELY CRICKET

‘Watching Cricket’ . . .  Watercolour . . . WHB – 2001

With my dog and my lunch and my wife by my side

I’ll go watch the cricket today I decide.

The sun it is shining, a book in my hand,

I’m ready to watch the lads make a stand.

In the trees now the birds, they natter and chatter,

Makes me feel sleepy but what does that matter.

 I see deep square leg take a wonderful catch,

But then fall asleep for the rest of the match.

They missed my support, but I’m quite happy now,

I can go back to sleep ‘cos we won anyhow.

. .. and talking about Cricket, I am reminded of that great joyful Calypso – all the rage in my youth! (now you know how old I am!)

You can join me in enjoying it once again in this YouTube video  . . .

CHERITA #2

My second experiment with the poetic form – The CHERITA . . .

‘Cherita’ is the Malay word for story or tale. A cherita consists of a single stanza of a one-line verse, followed by a two-line verse, and then finishing with a three-line verse. It can be written solo or with up to three partners.  (See the website at:   https://www.thecherita.com for further information).

2.

The wind rustled the branches.

The bird held tight,
Swaying with its motion,

Another bird landed beside her
She flew off
To find her own branch.

Longing

Borrowdale – Pen Sketch WHB – 1986  © 

Yes, my youth brought many vital moments
among my native hills.
Such interludes return now
in flashback and in dreams
in vignettes and in echoes;
instances of acute sensitivity,
memories more precious and persistent
as year passes into year.

I wish I had been more alive then,
more interwoven with my surroundings,
instinctively attached to the skies above
and to the rolling landscape below.

For there, on the vast wide-open moorland
where, above my breathing,
what I heard, was only the sound of the bees
visiting the sun-yellow gorse,
and the sighing rustle of the breeze
playing amongst the curls of bracken,
the blackbirds circling above in the sundown dusk,
calls of the curlew, lapwing and meadow pipit
lost in broom , hidden in heather.

Sometimes, in the bliss of solitude’s memory,
I have known a disregard for time itself,
and I sense I would happily reach eternal slumber
in the rapturous throes of such longing.

 

Words as Birds

Photo by Subham Dash on Pexels.com

 

as do birds
words fly

fluttering
hovering
singing
warbling

dull or exotic
cumbersome or succinct
tender or abrupt
yet so high
their sky

carrying
with their wings aflame
both sonority and meaning
their tone surging
from plangent to plaintive
from joyous to rhapsodic

gliding in grace
with forethought and intention
swooping with wit
dipping their wingtips
in pools of light
or in puddles of mud

careless words
trailing doubt
words with a conscience
trilling
swooping
in the summer sun
skimming the surface of reason
dipping to their trees
to rest
to roost
when evening is done

nesting with the need for growth
mating when the time is ripe
breeding as the notion is defined
fledging offspring true to type
nurturing meaning under their wing

always bearing
cushioned within their feathered breasts
for those who care to discover
their true strength
wings beating to pronounce
their significance
the revelation of their truth
the essence of their existence

 

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Pexels.com

‘Bee! I’m Expecting you!’ – Emily Dickinson

[  # 90 of My Favourite Short Poems  ]

My recent photograph of a yellow plaque posted outside this Wildlife Trust in South Devon, England – see below . . .

 

The Lark Ascending

THE LARK ASCENDING

 

As the morning lark ascends 

So my spirits fly,

Replaying my life. 

The memories spill

Across the cloudless sky,

And I consider time well spent 

Because it was spent with you.

And what the future has in store 

Holds no fears for me. 

The past was rich; 

We caught the wind,

Soared with each new gust,

Through dips and dives

We stayed alive.

Fruition came anew.

With each new swoop,

Each twist and turn,

A new path was revealed.

We that were two

Are now as one,

Our destinies are sealed.

 

 

A poem written to keep in my memory the thoughts engendered by the music played at my wife’s funeral eight weeks ago today.  Composed by Vaughan Williams, ‘The Lark Ascending’ was very much her favourite piece of classical music.  The version used was played on the violin by the Scottish violinist, Nicola Benedetti, and can be heard on YouTube at: ‘The Lark Ascending’

 

 

 

 

Edna St. Vincent Millay – ‘“What lips my lips have kissed’

(No.60 of my favourite short poems)

This Sonnet is by Edna St. Vincent Millay, an American poet and playwright who was born in Rockland, Maine, in 1892.  I find it a moving and poignant poem looking back on her more youthful days with regret and intense longing.  Her sonnet is written in the Italian form, divided into two parts – an eight-lined octet, followed by a six-line sestet, here presented as just two sentences.  It is both reflective and filled with remorse.

Millay’s first published poem, ‘Renascence‘ was particularly well received and launched her on her writing career.  For a large part of her life Millay lived and worked among her Bohemian friends in New York’s Greenwich Village milieu.  Known to her friends as Vincent, she was openly bisexual, and gradually accrued both fame and some notoriety.   In 1923, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for ‘The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver’.   Edna St Vincent Millay died in 1950.

 

“What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why”

By Edna St. Vincent Millay

 

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,

I have forgotten, and what arms have lain

Under my head till morning; but the rain

Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh

Upon the glass and listen for reply,

And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain

For unremembered lads that not again

Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.

 

Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,

Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,

Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:

I cannot say what loves have come and gone,

I only know that summer sang in me

A little while, that in me sings no more.