Spring Poems
Apr
Poems penned by the local community
The Return
Lulled by winter chill
and light curtailed,
we don’t recall the toll
of quick befrilling slug and snail
But now the thug of trail
-and toil-
returns
(The tell-tale spiral, unshod shell;
a ‘keely’ early caught)
A cull is mooted;
brutal!
Perhaps a shoot;
disputed!
Called by daffodils
and camomile,
and lone-consoling rain-
The gardeners’ spring travails
begin
In earnest
(gastropods are versatile)
As inestimable mouths
avail themselves of our morale,
and all our summer plans
annul.
Nigel Phillips, Whitchurch
Our Fallen Friend
For decades rooted in our celtic soul
Listening to secret woodland whispers
Watching generations wander through the bluebells
We wondered at your might
But still you stood
Remained our constant
Strong, unyielding
Where children elfin like, their laughter crisp, their boots deep in
your leaves
Would peep and hide beneath your trunk
And gaze upwards toward
Your twisted branches
Reaching to the sky
There you remained
Your age unknown
A landmark, a forever place
Unchanged by time
Unmoved by storms
You stood steadfast
Sheltering us
Sharing the hope that we can face the Winds of time, can still endure
Until today
When you lie fallen
I catch my breath
I weep for you
My fallen Wenallt friend
And all who shared your wonder
Claire Erasmus, Rhiwbina
Bluebells Bowed Their Heads
I walked here, in ‘Fforest Ganol’ Woods,
Before much of life had happened to me.
Normally, hand in hand, with a teenage love
Branches tangled above our careless heads
Trying not to tread on the ringing Bluebell carpet
That grew there then, and still does today,
A perfect illustration of Wordsworth’s line
‘Splendour in the grass. Glory in the flower’
And how nothing could, and can ever, regain
The mindless moments of our younger times
When all we sought was simple sweetness
On the cusp between ‘Innocence and Experience’
Moving from childhood ‘crush’, carrying her books
To proper passion growing, like a loving bruise
For all to see. Mindful maturity. Or its beginnings.
And in this Midsummer Night’s Dream
Of a Springtime place, we strolled arm in arm
Hopeful and harmless. ‘Love’s young dream’
Scheming and plotting our Saturday night
At ‘The Monico Cinema’. Eating sweets
And unwrapping our hearts. But beginning
To feel the chill winds of changes coming,
As ticking Trickster time toyed with us,
And our perfect rhyme became blank verse
As terse chronology and hour-glass sand
Dictated to us, ever more insistently,
And eventually, as night follows day
Took me away to where new flowers bloomed
In flat, Cambridge meadows, as yet unseen.
To stretch, in Summer grass, with brand new lovers.
While, in the familiar fields
Beneath old our familiar trees
Bluebells bowed their heads
And returned, at last, to earth.
Roger Stennett, Cardiff
Here In This Garden
Here in this garden the pleasant sunlight rays
Fall on blooms that hang from ancient wall
And gently flow into a coloured maze
There scents to creatures reach that heed its call,
How I like them I am when within your gaze
As under your charm I quickly fall
And voices turn into a murmured haze
So great it does my soul enthrall,
And so it has been for many days
As do I walk from hall to hall
Though would I for you presence praise
And wish of your time so ever small,
So do I miss thee that my heart does ache
And would I willingly your hand to take.
David W Morris, Llandaff North
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