GROUNDED
On emerging from hospital after major surgery in October 2022 I was restricted to the house and vicinity for a while. My main exercise was walking slowly around the neighbourhood - no jogging allowed. I found the reduction in pace made me more aware of the ground...
Acorn time
is here again.
Why can’t I be a squirrel
Would you rather
be cradled or stung
when you drift to the end of your glide?
Really? Perhaps you're an oak leaf.
When leaves lie down with stones
the delicacy of tones
has a mottled continuity
defying the contrast of weights.
You will not find
a more natural grout
than moss. Although, I concede,
that does leave the question of effectiveness.
The sunset leaf
may never set
but it will turn – I guess I should say turn again -
to mulch.
Does toadstool beauty
correlate with deadliness?
I may defer
that particular piece of research.
If cones
are evolving the means to fly
that little bit further from parental shade
then this may be a prototype.
Considering
that it has no roots
moss is pretty hard to pull -
not up I suppose, but away.
Five to six
by leaf clock:
another day has almost passed
staring up from the down of the ground.
In the contest of thorns
there's only one winner.
Please let me land - though this isn't a request -
in a prickle of bramble.
The good things about this pot
are the cubist perspective
and not having to worry
about it getting broken.
lands on a log
there’s a logic to its flutter
into doubly sad sense.
To give early mornings
their due, everything looks
as fresh as a geranium –
pending a daisy coming along.
This jewelled leaf
would be worth a fortune
if only it could be fixed as is
and turned into a brooch.
What’s the point
of cracks in the road
if water doesn’t use them
to drain away?
Do they remember
the air, the breeze, the sense of community,
how being wet was just a staging post to dryness?
You’re going to tell me not…
Cut grass meets blown leaves?
Seems wrong to me...
I do wish the seasons
would make up their minds!
My theory is
that all roadworks strive for the ideal state
in which there is nothing to be done -
meaning no finish can ever occur.
The tragedy is
that a leaf can drown
in almost no water
like a person stunned in their bath.
Just how primitive can you get?
Never mind Conan after ten pints,
the horse tail’s type was at its most prevalent
500m years ago.
(Equisetum is a 'living fossil', the only living genus of the entire subclass Equisetidae, which for over 100 million years was much more diverse and dominated the understorey of late Paleozoic forests)
This must be
an important puddle:
few are judged of sufficient note
to be pointed out by their very own arrow.
X marks the spot
of a tarmac cross-out
that hints at the other way
out of the hospital.
So what
if I'll grow back?
Would you like your limbs
to be cropped like hair?
Of course I'm astonished
that simply by driving over the pavement
the sum of cars can replicate
the network of local roads.
(the leaves represent the parish church (upper left), the shops (right) and the primary school (lower left))
Seen from above
this dark leather glove
says nothing of love
though it may hint at darker things you can’t expect to rhyme.
I sometimes wonder
If it isn’t the leaves
that fall to the ground
but only their ghosts.
