Signs of spring! Not in the photograph, which is of Little Switzerland, a caravan/camping park in Folkestone, but in my street, where the cherry blossom suddenly appeared last week. The poet A.E.Housman has a not-undeserved reputation as a miserable git-
Some can gaze and not be sick,
But I could never learn the trick.
There’s this to say for blood and breath,
They give a man a taste for death.
____
but he was pretty cheerful about cherry blossom
____
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
____
Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
____
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.
____
74 words, and perfect.
I wrote this in either 2016 or 2017. I suppose if you think of things you consider beautiful, concrete would be at the opposite end of the spectrum to cherry blossom. This is about how we come to like the things we like, whether they be natural things, made things, or art.
Large Concrete Structure
The cherry blossom tells us Spring has come
The cherry blossom tells us Spring has come
There are necessary hormones, rising sap
Come, sit beneath the blossom while it lasts
____
As pretty as a picture you were then
You were as pretty as a picture then
And because you can only think of time as passing
You took a photograph I still possess
____
But I remember it better than yesterday
I remember it better than I remember yesterday
You beneath the blossom at our picnic
Plump with youth and promise in the Spring
____
Here, there is memory and place and no anger
We knew no anger then
We had no reason
Rage came later, for no good reason
For no reason at all
____
But here, there is memory and place and no anger
There were ponies
We were dare-devils, climbing trees
As high as the lowest branch
____
And then those shiny boots, the click and clack
You heard before you saw them
Then rage had its season
____
The speed of change comes quickly
The blossom grows, goes quickly
One year the picture of you under the blossom
The next an abstract of something that might be blossom
Your departure not even hinted at
Your presence not even hidden
____
I look for you in this large concrete structure
I take for a work of art; a structure
That once had use, though no longer;
Not these days. It is labelled Large Concrete Structure
And I admire it more, these days,
Than the lovely cherry blossom in the Spring
—-
And here is a more recent piece.
Urban Myth
the day the alligator poked up in the toilet bowl
was the day my mother died
and my lover left me
and my boss fired me
and I fell for a credit card scam
as a result of which
I got so drunk that I got into a fight
and my nose was broken
and the suit I was wearing was ruined
and when I finally got home
I had lost my keys
and Joanna wasn’t there to let me in
I don’t blame the alligator for any of this
the alligator is the least of my worries
freeversefolkestone 