A CHANGE IN THE WEATHER

For days late summer heat had built
Hazing first fields of corduroy
where swallows climbed the heavy air
to shimmer over distant wheat.

Dense storm clouds mass as black night turns
and thunder stumbles round the hills
until a brief fluorescent flash
illuminates our airless room.

Then rain. First heavy drops explode
unevenly in ones and twos,
till suddenly a torrent grows -
setting awash the window sill,
racing down gullies, blocking drains,
cascading from gutters, swamping
lawns........everywhere is overfilled.
later we hear the storm's last roll
as timpani begins to slow:
Rain shushes to a steady drip.

And under blankets of warm air
we lie and wait for ragged dawn -
together, but with separate thoughts -
Aware, like love, that summer's gone.

         HARVEST

Beneath trees heavy with fruit :
An apple, discarded in the grass,
Crimson, yellow streaked, speckled.
Viewed from this side, spherical and whole.
Here magical deception :
Fruit beguiles the eye but not the hand.
No solidity, weightless;
Leathery, light of skin : an empty husk.

 Tree born, the apple endured
Through June when Codling caterpillar
Bored a home in this fruit's heart.
To the grass it fell, tiny grubhole
Soon enlarged as probing birds
Hunt moth's pink offspring. Crisp juiciness
Now exposed, white apple flesh
Attracts the earwig and wasp; the ants
Complete the job of stripping
To the skin this apple in the grass :
Crimson, yellow streaked, speckled.
Viewed from this side, spherical and whole

               VIGIL 

Amazed, dessertspoons poised, we paused
to watch that tiny bird in flight.
through open door, across the room
It skimmed towards the windowed light
of setting sun. Hitting the glass
head on it fell untidily
to ground. Panting, eyes closed, it lay
there,

close to death.

Then you reached down
to cup it, trembling, in your hands.
Somehow it calmed and, coming round,
it perched upon your outstretched palm
as, to the door you carried it
then gently coaxed it into flight.

Just like the bird the years have flown
somehow we’ve got to where we are.

I sit and watch you helplessly
as, with eyes closed, your breathing slows.
I wish it could be so simple now :
I’d calm your trembling in my arms,
Then help you to that open door
That leads you back towards the light.