Birds
In early morning
Sing
Of coming spring.
Cats
Have no cruelty
Yet we condemn in them
The cruelty of men
While the birds still sing
Of spring
And my heart responds
To birdsong
Birds
In early morning
Sing
Of coming spring.
Cats
Have no cruelty
Yet we condemn in them
The cruelty of men
While the birds still sing
Of spring
And my heart responds
To birdsong
I awake from sleep
And start my day
With tea.
I feel the life within me
Flowing strong
I will be
Just me
Ere I find sleep
Again.
Sometimes I weep
But the wood
Is full of birdsong.
I will walk there again
For I am half in love
And I do not have long
Ere sleep finally takes me
To beyond birdsong,
Love and sleep
I open my window
And listen to bird calls
As rain falls
To the garden below.
This is the timeless time
Of nature’s passing rhyme.
But work calls
And I must go.
Yet the fall
Of the rain
And the bird’s call
Remain
The clock ticks another year towards its close.
Winter’s clothes will soon replace autumn’s leaf-strewn face.
Spring lies well concealed in the wings
And summertime is a half remembered rhyme
In the ageing poet’s mind
Where everything repeats
And time defeats.
Until all as leaves fall.
I have seen this same old log
Over many years
As I passed by with my dogs.
Years have flown.
I have walked alone
When my dogs have died.
Now I pass by
With another one.
Time moves forever on.
All logs decay.
I know one day
Dogs and I
Will not pass by.
But autumn leaves
Are beautiful to me.
The wind is fresh
Carrying the scents of life and death.
While from a tree
The autumn leaves are falling on me.
I lose myself in rhymes
Of passing time
And others who once stood
In autumn’s wood.
My friend collects acorns from leaf-strewn lawns
Hoping that Oaks may grow.
Others may see the fully grown tree.
While we will not know.
The wind is an invisible thing.
We see the waving trees
And leaves blown in the breeze.
I hear the wild wind
But him I do not see.
Walking home in the pouring rain
I pondered on AI
And those who continue to maintain
The inevitability of progress.
The rain continued to fall.
Although I heard
No human word
Nature seemed to laugh
As I passed
Along the familiar churchyard path.
I am conscious of the breeze
In the trees
As the vehicles pass me by.
Back at my flat
I go to my open window
And hear the eternal breeze
Passing through the trees.
In my place of work there is a poetry club of which I am a member. We meet on a monthly basis and discuss 2-3 poems. In May, the club where kind enough to allow me to read several poems from my recently published collection, “Passing Through: Some Thoughts on Life and Death”.
At next week’s meeting we will be discussing Housman’s “Tell Me Not Here, it Needs Not Saying”. The poem (which is one of my favourites) was suggested by me. You can find a reading of it by the poet Andrew Motion here https://poetryarchive.org/poem/tell-me-not-here-it-needs-not-saying/.
“Passing Through: Some Thoughts on Life and Death” is available in Kindle and paperback, and can be found here Passing Through: Some thoughts on life and death: Amazon.co.uk: Morris, K: 9798284279151: Books