Hear that noisy cuckoo there,
thinks she’s hidden in the reeds.
You wouldn’t reckon there was
much to her, silly call apart,
but she’s an amazing lass;
she only has a private
pilot’s licence, yet in Spring
she flies from Africa to
the Fens with no chart, map or
SatNav to guide, relying
entirely on memory.
When she lands she searches out
A foster mother for her chick
Who not only helps it hatch
but feeds it as her own. Smart trick!
When the youngster’s fully fledged
real Mum leads it from the sedge
and flies it south unerringly.
Who’s a silly cuckoo?
You!

‘many, many foggies’ says my driver, grinning

as we enter soup-thick cloud along the bluff below the pass called Thrumsing La

Dochen has that way of speaking English, laughingly

so jovially therapeutic

he sets the tone for what’s an otherwise long rough mountain ride across Bhutan

up-down-around the twisting road

sometimes dull and foggy

but in clear sun the view is bold

with naked cliffs streaked white by mountain freshets

tumbling sheer from secret groves above

where jade green moss, grey lichen and long strands of mist

lay still, whispering if you listen

with startling clarity from nature’s pure primeval soul

surely kindly ghosts inhabit this ancient sacred land

and sometimes, while traversing east across the royal road, each turn,

each vista is ablaze with rhododendron –

scarlet, pink, yellow, mauve,
and ivory magnolia,

and birds on iridescent wing that flit and fidget across the broad carpet

of shockingly bright spring blossoms

their radiant colors and resonant songs pierce the green dark forest

and sometimes the sky comes down

to touch the earth and pastures, high up

where yak graze and wild boar uproot the fields in bright daylight

where leopard and rare tiger roam stealthily at dusk

where snow lays close in woodland nullahs long into May

where fir and larch and hemlock stand tall and sharp against a cobalt sky

where blood pheasant, red panda and muntjac

feed passively, unseen, unheard in dense thickets

where prayer flags silently mark and bless one’s passage in the dark

while mountain breezes waft brusquely, unchecked to bend the tree tops

and dark-clouded storms roil up to dare a blood red sunset

it seems so far

this wild untrammeled land

so far from din of hectic world and troubled age

and when along the road past Thrumsing La great banks of cloud obscure it all

then wild mountain spirits cling tightly to the cliff’s bare face

Dochen’s ‘foggies’

Dragging the Christmas tree out the door,
a longing begins that grips at my core.
The first two months almost wished away,
my mood, like the sky, tinged with grey.
When there’s no more festive songs to sing,
I’m longing just longing for it to be Spring.

I search for signs that it’s getting near,
green shoots breaking through, buds to appear.
As life inches up despite the frost,
I too, start to feel that little less lost.
A buzz inside knowing it’s about to begin,
Winter farewell, make way for Spring.

Days getting longer, so good for the soul,
the rush in the dark now a pleasant stroll.
Instead of appearing like Michelin men,
layers come off, we’re lighter again.
Children enjoying a slide and a swing,
faces smiling that it’s finally Spring.

After missing the sight of colour around,
crocuses in purple and yellow abound.
The sun on my face, the desire to plan,
gathering momentum now that I can.
I find myself gazing on the world afresh,
warmth in my bones, there’s Spring in my step.

She never did look back you know,
But blundered through her unsung youth
With eyes half open, heart tight closed.
The disappointment of one spring
Had sapped her early blossoming,
The hand that crushed her nubile seed
Had wantonly deprived her of
All latitudes of joy,

And every spring was unaware,
The lapwing dipped through grasses tall
And grazed the glassy water.
And summer wrapped herself around,
Extolled the beauty briefly found
In sun-kissed cheeks and dewy eyes,
Before the cool succeeding season
Turned the heart away.

Thus autumn passed, with rampant stride,
He drove through all we would delay
And cast it on the ground.
The shrivelled garden of her heart
Was rendered wide and ripped apart
By winter’s shrill falsetto cry
As by he rode and froze away
All hope of recompense.

But through the horror of that sound
She heard another sweetly drift
Into her souls cold cavity.
Look back she did, at such a spring
Robust with joy and blossoming,
Slipping down the Arctic slopes,
Blessing with a tender touch
She never now would know.

So all young maidens mark this tale
And do not cast with undue haste
Your heart upon the table.
Sadness comes as sadness must
Before we’re competent to trust,
And future springs can offer more
Than the single bursting of a flower
Within a fragile heart.

The winds of March
strip from the oak
all vestiges of leaves.

The lion roars.

Flexing, curling sleepy seeds
pound upon the stony roof
that bars them from the sun.

The season weeps.

Buds will burst and splinter wide
the unconscious sheath of parenting
inhibiting their growth.

The rivers flow.

Tenants new in landmark shades
push out the brown and purple
stains of winter’s icy lease.

The lion sleeps.

After winter’s flagellation: trees stand as if unbowed,
akin to bastions of priests and priestesses
awaiting their blessed exoneration
from spring’s lactating sap.

Twisted, majestic, warped, evergreen,
deciduous, lopped or deformed: are trees
a surviving force of panspermia that live and breathe
through time, space and adversity?

Or, are they functioning as landscaped mediators,
whose presence uplifts humanity
from their subconscious thoughts of the unimaginable?

The trees’ life-lined circles are recorded, hidden behind
hardened-skinned barks; a core testament of their rebirth
when rooted in Earth’s crust.

But what of the trees’ overreaching:
does their spatial growth sense a gravitational pull
to evolve beyond the all ready known?

If thoughts on the theory of everything, large or small,
are elusive, unseen, hidden behind
curved, orbitual walls: can this infinite scale be imagined
or will it remain a distorted illusion?

With spring’s resuscitation from winter’s grip:
do seasons’ echoes rotate and transmit the past
in the present of time’s future?

And when the blackbird sits in the trees and sings
of a new beginning; a new spring day’s dawn:

will humankind foresee instead, history repeating itself
through the pain of war and tsunami cries?

The buds are coming out again!
So cry the young voices far across the garden
reaching my chair just inside the door
where I can smell the new mown grass.

A bud is broken off and rushed to show the broken shadow of her former self,
earning a sharp-tongued reproof that trees live too, like you.
Like me. Just.

Springtime should, as I sit here and think – and think.
make me hunger for more
knowing there will soon be no more buds
or Spring. Or children’s voices.

Yet still I rejoice in new life;
wonder at nature with its annual rebirth;
lose myself in the yellows and purples of Spring
and the promise of continuity.

Perhaps in years to come
when these bud-bearers run their fingers through fresh green grass,
and when flowers peep shyly through the earth;
they will remember me, when the buds come out again.

Four small birds squashed
together in a grass-lined box.
Soft sleeping sparrow shapes
dreaming green caterpillar dreams……
Then, a Big Bang explosion of
energy. Sun yellow ‘feed-me-first’
mouths open wide as moon craters.
Stars in the making.

They’re on camera,
but they don’t know it,
beamed into my living room

on Bird Box TV, the best channel.
In high pitched definition
they cheap, jostle for attention
and the Big Brother Bird House
camera gets it all.
Squabbling
scratching
shuffling
pushing
pecking
preening.

Brand new wings are fluttered

and spread like fans over
the other housemates.
It’s time for the first eviction.

Love in a rainbow.

When you gaze
On a hazy
Rainbow in spring.

Feel soft misty rain,
Hear birds sing.
I’ll be there.

When a field
Full of buttercups
Sweeten the breeze,

Pussy willows and Catkins
Appear on the trees.
I’ll only be
A thought away.

When you gaze
On a hazy
Rainbow in spring.

Bathed in slanting, eggnog sunlight,
the red-stemmed dogwood stands erect
by a paling fence. Pallid shadows streak
corrugated fields and I grow impatient
for spring to turn them to oceans
of rippling waves of green.

At the top of the hill, a eucalyptus tree,
planted in haste, stakes a claim to this
my cherished land, when a native oak
would have done it so much more proud.
In its stead a slender, piebald trunk
misshapen by prevailing winds.

A cacophony of pheasants erupts – splitting
my eardrums with their cackle, as they scoot
to the nearby moor; a red kite circles overhead
riding the thermals. Frozen to the bone
I lay down my fork and trowel, glancing up
at the pinkish tinge of a frost boding sky.

By the pond, a clump of narcissus
do their damndest to push on through
serried ranks of trenchant meadow grass.
Late spring or not – one small bud, all but
open. I cup its pouting lips in my hands;
each panted breath warming my palms.