Poems and Paths: EARLY SPRING

Thursday 21 February 2013

EARLY SPRING

Early Spring

Silently and shyly, Spring rose today at dawn,

Hiding her pale face behind a filmy veil

As she crept across the land,

Anxious to be undiscovered

Until she knows her time is ripe.

But the all-observing blackbird sees her

And greets her with a single, muted call,

As if too shrill a cry might warn departing Winter

And give him cause to stay.

The yellowhammer also notices her presence,

And the friendly, scarlet-chested robin,

Prancing joyfully along the leafless hedge;

But they maintain a quiet reticence,

Anxious not to advertise her early outing.

Only the raucous rooks are unremitting;

Calling callously with mocking mirth.

And on the sweetly slumbering magnolia,

Long buds swell with finger-pointing promise,

Soon to burst in fragrant floral fantasy.

Soon, too, delirious hares will dance again

In moonlight, over greening fields.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...: You are a wonderful writer/poet. "Early Spring" presents a beautiful and poignant portrait for people anywhere. Nice work.

BM; 21 February 2013 at 06:56
Pete Thompson said...: BM thank you so much for your kind comment - I'm quite overwhelmed>; 21 February 2013 at 07:04
Anonymous said...: What I love most about your poetry is that one can easily see it's art from a man who understands nature, the creatures with whom he shares the land and who also has the ability to say it in a very heart-felt manner. You do what I have always thought poets should do: make your readers feel what they already know. In a word, beautiful.

BM; 21 February 2013 at 07:11

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About Poems and Paths

‘Poems and Paths’ is a record of my own impressions and perceptions, mostly from walking in the wolds and vales of the East Riding of Yorkshire.

Walking and writing have always strolled along together hand-in-hand, exploring, at one and the same time, the pathways on the ground and the pathways in the mind. It’s an intimate inter-relationship that can rejoice in broad, sunny vistas or creep in trepidation through the shadowlands where one might expect any map to warn: ‘Here Be Dragons’.

Paths are so much more than just connections that join together places. They also connect us directly to the landscape, to the past and the future, to those who have walked there before us and who will follow us and, most importantly, they connect us to our own imaginations and all the thoughts, emotions and half-remembered associations that lie not far below the surface of our consciousness.

The works of all the well- and lesser-known walker/writers bear testimony to this: George Borrow, Richard Jefferies, William Wordsworth, John Clare, Edward Thomas, W H Davies and, more recently, my much-missed friend, Roger Deakin, and the
nature writer, Robert Macfarlane.

As Macfarlane observes, “Paths are the habits of the landscape. They are acts of consensual making….They relate places in a literal sense, and by extension they relate people.”

Edward Thomas believed that paths record the impressions of all who pass along them:

“…heavy is the tread
Of the living: but the dead
Returning lightly dance:

Whatever the road bring
To me or take from me,
They keep me company
With their pattering”

‘Poems and Paths’ is written in the firm belief that, when traversing the pathways of the land and the pathways of the mind, it is always better to travel hopefully than to arrive.