OLD COMRADES
Wearing the anguish
of old age
like some military honour,
he follows the cortege.
He remembers the
and how his thoughts
had turned to the mill-girl
two doors down.
Sometimes the dream looms
larger than his life.
A smile emerges, creasing
His well-worn mask –
his sorrow smothered
by her freely-imaged warmth.
Flossie her name was,
now she’s gone –
his death was living,
hers is snugly wrapped in wood.
He wears his grief with pride;
alone, misunderstood.
Malcolm Evison
FLOCKS AND CONGREGATIONS
A darkly brooding
Congregation
Of cumuli glowers
Overhead
Threatens to destroy
Our horizon
A neighbouring flock
Glows brightly
Caressed by the sun
We ignore the gloom
And drive
Towards the light
Malcolm Evison
7 September 2007
SPLASH INTO SPRING
A sprinkling splash,
a sudden flash
of ruddy gold -
the first spring stirrings.
A long, slow, turgid rest
supplanted
by these vital chimes.
Today
they share the sunshine's joy -
and ripple wilfully.
Last seasons debris
stirred and shaken,
the fish escape
their sedimentary rest,
herald the promise
of brighter days to come.
Like me, they must have felt
they'd plumbed the depths
for far too long.
Malcolm Evison
Malcolm Evison
18 February 2007
This is my first poem of the New Year, written this afternoon.
First Rite
Reluctantly compliant twigs
permit the murmuring wind
to pluck arpeggios -
they glisten as they dance,
throw off the recent rain,
as if to solemnize the ground
in Holy baptism.
Shoots drill
through the cold
sodden ground,
shrilling defiance.
Snow’s residue,
a blanket stitch,
hems in the pale green spears.
A sunbeam breaks
the day’s grey wash -
as if to bless
this new emergence.
24 January 2007
