Les Nymphéas – Tree Reflections

Les Nymphéas – Tree Reflections

 

He sits in a wicker chair, gazing at trees,

straw hat, old suit, patrician beard,

cigarette held in limp fingers: Claude Monet.

Our cessation is not sudden. Like stars

across the black dome of a sky, one by one,

flickering, unnoticed, into oblivion,

senses lose their clarity. Seeing is all,

the sensual beauty of being. Dying eyes

blur what memory tells, what paint recalls.      

Giverny, when daylight and darkness

share a moment of equilibrium;

lake mirrors last hints of brightness

in the imagined sky. Shadow of willow,

trunk and whispy branches, shimmer

against blues of echoed, vanishing light.

Yet rose pink, palest white, green, luminous,

lilies, floating spirits, gently drift

across the blackness, suspended,

forever, against impending night.

Rain on a carriage window

Rain on a carriage window

The train has stopped.  Beyond a barrier of glass

grey fields; by the track a broken fence,

ditch, reeds, dark scrub of bramble.

Towards the horizon tall trees, wires, towers,

denote a nameless town.

We wait, watching the droplets of rain,

tadpoles of light, that sliver, quiver,

coalesce, then slip to oblivion.

Somewhere at the front of this train, a locomotive

hisses or growls, awaiting a signal

for the main line, or maybe the branch

- we are no longer sure.

Time is here suspended. Our way defined

by tracks untravelled, a route unknown.

Only raindrops, quick, elusive as thought,

gently tease at memory.

Dune Fox

DUNE FOX

High dunes, reed-spiked, hush surf’s roar.

Wind whipped, we stop, dismount,

leave bikes by the Fietspad.  She is there,

small, sharp-eared, rust brown. Eyes meet;

Hers dark pools. She pauses, pleads, pads to where

We rustle for biscuit.  She eats, quick, as if to say

Is it not better so to busk than tear

The guts from a quivering, wide-eyed prey?

She plays an old game. Wolves, wild dogs, gave up

savage freedoms for table scraps, stale meat,

their masters’ whistle and crack of whip.

obsequies of obligation, perfectly met.

Fox in the blowing sand, we also come,

word-tamed to beg a stranger’s crumb.

 The title poem of Colin Speakman's 2011 collection - available on Amazon £3 or order direct from

colinspeakman.tfl@blueyonder.co.uk - state address and invoice will be included (post free)