Churchyard Leaves

Photo: WHB – Surrey 2020

CHURCHYARD LEAVES

Churchyard leaves
Blanket the dead;
Winter warmth
Of words unsaid.

Deep in their earth,
now ashes and dust,
Forgotten are fears
worries, mistrust.

Here where stillness
reflects on the past,
We meet with the future
Our questions unasked.

Photo: WHB – Surrey 2020

A WINTER’S TALE

Let me steal the midnight’s silence,
The stillness of the dawn,
The dampness of the morning grass,
As one more day is born.

Let me tread the crisp new snow
And breathe the icy blast;
Match my step to winter’s wind,
Relive those pleasures past.

For I must reach another goal
Fate’s purpose to pursue.
Life has been short and gone too soon
My devils to subdue.

And when my grave has opened up
My body to receive
Already mildew on my heart
And few there’ll be to grieve.

 

 

A December Tanka

‘Winter’ … WHB – Pen & Ink 2017 

 

Bright the winter sun

Burns in the short day’s heaven

As each day goes by

I think of Bethlehem’s star

Wishing the year ‘Au Revoir’.

 

Tanka is a genre of classical Japanese poetry meaning a short poem, and one of the major genres of Japanese literature.

A Tanka consist of five units (often treated as separate lines when romanized or translated) usually with the pattern of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables per unit or line). Wikipedia.

I have again ended my Tanka with a rhyming couplet.

A November Tanka

Photo by Matt Hardy on Pexels.com

 

Dark the days are now

Winter bites as we look on

In November’s clothes

Breeding hope and dulling pain

Will we see this month again?

 

Tanka is a genre of classical Japanese poetry meaning a short poem, and one of the major genres of Japanese literature.

A Tanka consist of five units (often treated as separate lines when romanized or translated) usually with the pattern of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables per unit or line). Wikipedia.

I have here ended my Tanka with a rhyming couplet

 

 

 

Summer Rain

Photo by Matthias Cooper on Pexels.com

Summer is not rain
Nor is rain summer
But each needs the other
Cannot be without both being

Just as winter
requires the sun to shine
and display its splendour
to reflect its ice particles
into the crystal diamonds
of exuberant life
So the rain
complements the summer sun
dampening its ardour
allowing it to refresh and renew

Both asserting 
the exuberance
of a Natural heritage
wherein all
is related to all
and all is as it should be

 

© WHB:  Previously submitted in response to the prompt’Summer Rain on ‘Go Dog Go Cafe’.

Sad Sky

Photo by Simon Matzinger on Pexels.com

 

The Sky is Sad today

Its Clouds Weep bitter joyless Tears

While Winter Winds arouse the foam-topped Waves

Would that they Wash away my burgeoning Fears.

 

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.

 

Lost and Never Found

If I speak with melancholy
If you sense despair,
Think no more of it
I have not quit –
It is a mask I wear.

One which, for sure, I do not relish;
I am not given to gloom.
Yet all unbidden,
No truth forbidden,
I cannot help but speak of doom.

For once upon a wintertime,
Hoar frost upon the ground,
I lost my love
To Him above:
Never again to be found.

Winter Haiku

Photo by Raine Nectar on Pexels.com

As darkness descends

Nature catches breath and sleeps

Awaiting rebirth

 

 

The GREEN MAN

‘Green Man’ . . . Pen&Wash – WHB ©

The GREEN MAN

He is my history
Lusting after the hills of my youth
He strides the moorland paths
Amidst the bracken and the gorse
Drinking the sun’s warm ale
Savouring the wind’s heather-toned tang
Turning time to his advantage
Tuning in to its connecting wavelength

He is great Nature’s spirit
Rising and falling with its moods
Sad yet serene in Spring
Holding the hope of the future

Bright and bubbly in the summer rains
Rich and expansive in the sun’s bright gaze

Brought to magnificent autumn richness
Coloured by russet tints
Fruitful in his beneficence

He is the winter too
Drifting with the whiteness of its moods
His flocks penned for winter warmth neath the mountain crag
Shielding the gentle crocus
And the blanched snowdrop

He is the spirit of the trees
Lord of copse and wood
Guardian of Grove and greenwood
Verdant Monarch of the forest

Of the landscape’s lakes
Running with the cool waters of streams and rivers
The stillness of Its ponds and pools

Both past and future
Gone yet still to come again
his cyclic journey unfolds
From birth to death
From death to resurrection
To new life and resurgent hope
Maintaining existence
Midst promises and threats
To bring renewal in the name of life