A Walk

There is a little flower
just a daisy in the sun
it's almost invisible
it's unseen by anyone

There's grace in how it's swaying
in the soft and gentle breeze
I'd love to pick that daisy
just to take it home with me

It's just a little flower
I found standing tall and proud
I stood in awe, yes wonder
as I heard it speak out loud

'I'm a flower in the sun
but I'm lonesome as I can be
please pick me and take me home
I don't like being alone'

it is her job to sweep the walkway
but she can not sweep today
for her heart has just been broken
and the gripping pain won't go away

she has to sweep the walkway
she must do it everyday if she wants pay
there are two dogs she has adopted
or visa versa along the way

she works away her broom in hand
the sun baring down on her fair face
her new found friends just want to play
up and down the walkway they will race

she bids good morning to the cop
as he saunters by and pets the dogs
but he can't stop too long to play
for he's got tickets he must log

she stops along the walkway to wipe
away the tears her lover caused
when he created havoc in her heart so bound
she barely brushes as she sweeps the walkway down
  

As I stepped off the building,
the world turned through 90 degrees
and I strolled past neighbours windows,
looking down inside their rooms
warm, bright, family life behind glass.

Vibrant with activity, sit down meals,
office workers greeted with kisses,
children fighting over the tv remote,
dog stretched out in front of the fire,
siblings giggling with bath time bubbles,
passionate couples arguing over nothing,
bodies showering away the days grime,
dad wrestling with three little monsters,
a lady near the ground floor even waved.

As I stepped onto the pavement
I said “my world isn’t too bad”
But I was walking faster than I thought.

I left the note under a rock,
so it didn’t blow away.

It's the same 4am start as every year,    
the cold hard shiver of plastic car doors      
rattled down miles of motorway.      
Field mist making shapes on dark horizons,      
as warmth finally brings a sleeping bag      
and zips me in and out of conciseness.       
   
I wake in Somerset,      
blinded by rapeseed in a blaze of yellow.      
There are few sights more wonderful,      
than a field of flowers to remind me      
I have escaped the pastels of concrete.      
     
I crack the window inside Devon and join the dog      
as we sniff the ocean together,      
its scent rides the coast road      
all the way to the welcome sign.      
     
Tomorrow I'll watch the trawlers at first light  
taking their colors to wash them with the tide,    
then climb among the nesting gulls,      
a warm breeze folding my feathers      
to rest in a bed of bracken, lay back      
under a big sky and feel the faint tremor      
of waves pounding on the rocks below.      
     
In the end, a sense of sadness will fill the car    
with petrol and leave behind my minds eye,  
as an August moon collides with coastal downs,    
leaving the last silver balm of our holiday,

Sometimes, it starts with just perhaps  
the dog will pant and paw
eyes with expectation light  
his lead hangs by the door  
 
The backdrop of my unshaven chin  
white snowflakes of dandruff fall  
time to don the trace, adieu within  
claustrophobia unlocked by open air  
 
its faint euphoria of diesel fumes  
I brave the cold 'neath winter clothes  
naphthalene balls, long lost their power  
the moth holes and mould  
 
I hold the romance of new cut grass  
the time when we were free  
our chatter stirred like autumn leaves  
that rise and  fall, released like an escapee  
 
 Quiet empty street, just BOB pulls on his lead  
the clatter of the garbage wagon  
clearing all the petrification  
valentines day flowers, gone Miss Siagon  
 
February's  brief aroma's, of chocolate's  
half burned Yankee, scented candles  
as we press on, snapping twigs  
old crisp packets, detritus, a perfect shambles  
 
Park gates, lost their guild  
let off the leash, constraints all unpinned  
tall branches beckon  
prompts called from the wings  
 
The joy, that hears the fountains arch  
dancing as it falls  
that sparkles bright however dark  
dogs run and bark, the lockdown lessen its recoil  
 
The performance was behind closed doors  
walking to the box office  
dystopia its grip not heed my step  
 curtain rise, green shoot's on wood and coppice  
 
Elasticity  of stride, foot fall stuck with pride  
the stalls and from the gods  
dark paths away, from concrete blocks  
eyes of fenestration, the whistles and the nods  
 
    
 
 

I sit in the old servants quarters of
an English stately home. Behind the wall,
a partly cobbled green lane which I love.

Going down the lane from this aging Hall
in a wooded glade is a metalled road.
Going right, past a white wash Lodge withal

a scattering of dwellings now bestowed
by this beautiful walk through bright sunbeam.
Toward a bridge under which a burn flowed

where trout swim stationary in the stream
and, sometimes in the woods, roe deer are seen.
Continuing on this road as a dream

especially at dusk, where before we've been.
Road and stream like rod and snake reach a ford,
where two foot trout shimmer, quiver, careen

across to spawn; a sight to be adored.
Where stream and road cross a ford, where we roam -
pleasant and relaxing with health restored.

Along the lane where the trees make a dome,
around the corner and starting to climb,
the single track lane will then take us home.

If I stood up and rotated around:
each way you look, this journey is background.

 
For more than 60 years, I've been running. . .

The road behind me

rambles over

risk-less and routine terrain.

The road beneath

offers redundantly,

more of the same.

The road I run on

is so uncertain, yet so new.

& as I transform everyday problems

into creative projects,

I'm reminded that my derriere

and the porch rocking chair

weren't made for each other.

Cotton morsels of breath
in oral morning wake ups
and sweaters still hugging
molars and bicuspids, I got
to have that coffee first!

Barefooted, I traverse
across the cold tiles made
for temperature gauges
during summer or winter.

As I prepare the pot to brew
small tears stream down
the corners of my crusted
eyes as I ponder the reasons
my bare feet of skin no longer
commune with our earth.

This old floor of stone gives me
this poignant solemn reminder
how once the mighty rock stood
strong atop and below earth’s
embracing arms of sand and soil.

And a place my heart longs for
the green rug that lines a Forest
floor. How sometimes I ache
inside while missing the groups
of Trees all huddled together
forming a magickal family.

Trying to survive in this man-
made erection of concrete,
wood and wire, I attempt to
surround me with surroundings
of the domicile my old soul
remembers.  I am getting
there. . .

This old floor of stone
comforts me each time my
bare skin touches it and
I never mind that the floor
Is too cold.  If anything, the
cold is my way of never
forgetting my kindred
roots and my companions
the Trees.