I have awoken to birdsong
And lain awake
Until sleep takes me again.
I measure time
With clocks. Birds and flowers
No not hours,
Nor do they see me
Conversing with time
In a half rhyming rhyme
Until my song is done.
These trees
Speak to me
Of mortality.
Touching old bark
And cold gravestone,
I hark
To the birds
Still heard
By me.
I recall the nesting box
On my grandfather’s shed.
Blue Tits laid their eggs.
Some grew, and flew
Away.
January seems dead.
Yet, in the churchyard birds
Sing.
And, come the spring
Birds will lay in boxes
To the delight
Of young children.
And foxes bark
In the depths of night.
We may try to deny
That Mother Nature is there.
But the bur
On our clothes.
The prick of the rose.
And twigs in our hair.
Show what we know,
That nature is there.
I am pleased to announce that my poem A Summer Butterfly has been included on the World Poetry Reading Series for 21 July. A Summer Butterfly is read by Ariadne Sawyer and can be found approximately 6 minutes into the podcast https://www.mixcloud.com/VictorSchwartzman/world-poetry-cafe-for-july-21-2022/.
I listened to the show using Google Chrome. However, other browsers should also work. You don’t need an account on Mixcloud in order to listen.
You can find a transcript of my poem here https://kmorrispoet.com/2022/07/05/a-summer-butterfly/.
A butterfly
On a
Sunny day
Flew by
My Labrador.
A snap of jaw.
And our summer chat
Of this and that.
All things must die
As the summer butterfly.
Death’s jaws will close
On man and rose.
You and I
Are but butterflies
Who love and laugh
And then must pass.
As the light
Slowly dimmed
I took delight
In birds.
“Oh my god!”.
But words
Are not birds.
I hear the free
Wind,
And the birds sing.
And long to be
Free
As the unconquerable wind
And birds
That sing.
In the cold air
A bird did sing.
I have my care.
But I heard a blackbird
Trill in the chill air,
Which took away my care.
An intense sense
Of my mortality
Comes to me
When I hear
The sweet clear
Song of birds.
Oft when caught
In useless thought
Or in empty words,
I hear the birds.
I see beauty.
And am free
K Morris - Poet 