Paiku

These soft new holly leaves
Haven't yet learned
The virtue of cruelty

Big sky
Scrubbed clean
For this year's larks

 

Hunched behind a fencepost
Cat fathoms
Next-door's windblown washing

Wind-possessed,
Last year's cackling, idiot leaves
Swarm across the tarmac

In today's gale
Robin proclaims his sovereignty
From lower down the tree

March gusts
Slam spluttering sunshine
Headlong into a stone wall

 

I grip the barbed wire
To be sure of
The sharpness

I knew when I set out
The rain would
Beat me home

Oak tree bends back
Aghast
At years of westerlies

Nothing I say
Can improve on
This stainless steel spoon

 

The bells
And their sudden cease
Are equally loud

Cattle truck
Leaves a bellow
The length of our street

I'm made of
Earth and stones
According to my shadow

The sun has set on me
But not on the tiny
Going-somewhere aeroplanes

 

Fork and spade
Are how I
Talk to the land

In the lee of a Spring wall
An unexpected
Summer afternoon

An afternoon
So pastel thin
The slightest breeze could tear it

We stare down
An empty road
At the bus not coming

 

Don't fear me
Little lamb -
Fear my butcher

I chew a new green bud
To be part
Of the greenness