This Month's Featured Poem
Below are two evocative poems by our prolific member RogerNoons,
to celebrate the return of the English summer
Late April in the Dales
***
Welcome Back
Blackbirds calling, robins reply.
A distant curlew takes to the sky.
Milk white lambs stroll on the green-hazed, brown fell
where gritstone walls snake down to the roadway.
Spits of blackthorn break the monotony
of the boundary walls whose copings
are softened by yellow-green moss.
A steady, fine rain falls on the water,
ignored by martins collecting sand.
They zoom like spitfires beneath
the arches of Burnsall bridge.
The Wharfe is low after a drought-filled April,
exposed pebbles glisten bright from afar.
With no real wind, the wood smoke rises
near vertical to’rds a toneles sky.
Lapwing in the meadow, mallard by the bank.
A dipper nods to a visiting redshank.
****
After the Rain
Golden bursts of marsh marigold edge the beck
which feeds the trout pool, deepened by twenty four hours of heavy rain.
No specimens rise for the occasional flies which flirt with the surface.
Brown water weirs into a fast running stream which rushes to the river.
Bordering the bank, fresh green leaves of beech gaze on
while new sycamore buds snigger at the browning spikes of the horse chestnut.
An alder, wrestled by ivy, dips its branches into the water
restraining the debris of last year’s fall.
Hooks on low hawthorn catch sheep fleece strands,
those escaping detained by bramble.
The muddy path offers a find of gold,
metallic paper dropped by a careless smoker.
Heart-shaped fern surrounds the kissing gate
and the church tower still flies the flag of King George.
Small, tight May buds cluster the branch ends
whilst a solitary buttercup illuminates the shadowed grass.
Distant scree forms a dark background for midges,
dancing in a shaft of sunlight fronting Grass Wood and Loup Scar.
Copyright Roger Noons 2013
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