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A Woodland Ensemble - Psithurism of the Trees.

The plane tree
With paper-like rustle
Elephant patches
And scaly trunk.

Memories
And mellow whispers
Of a darkest tempest
Dropping the bass.

Constable elms
Whispering, suckering saplings
Converting
To beetle runs beneath.

Ash-
With minstrel keys
playing harmonies
masking sinister die back.

Crataegus thickets
The scratchy
rasping may
catch you quick.

Whispering pines
Bend forwards
Reaching skywards
Splintering the silence.

Mother beech
With spaltered
Marks waltzing
And humoresque streaks.

Holly reigns in
Summer solstice
Days shorten
And poco a poco winter returns.

King of the woods
Ships hold
Forte and
Table fast.

Eric

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Forever Searching

Search the walls Scan the corridors Express the highs Scribble the lows Writing explores The state of my mind.   Judith  

Seasons

To each a season: the planets Turn in Kepler's gyre, Swelling the mental weather, Fattening the wealth Of light and dark I weekly Feel in my own solitude. To each a season: a death Of what was hard and cold: A burst of sun to break My hoary sadness And gild the shining tower I build around your smile. But let's not talk of sun But speak instead of life And all the things I feel When living through mortality. The lovely times We feast and meagre times We only feed on memories. I have my seasons. Tim Holt-Wilson

A Way of Life

It’s become a way of life this summer, the canvas bag slung over my shoulder hoping not to need it hoping the sky will stay blue long enough to get a walk by the sea. It’s become a way of life this summer, wearing my green jeans, wearing a matching sweatshirt to keep the wind out, wearing green wherever possible to match my green cagoule in case I need it. It’s becoming a way of life, it’s true, this life of uncertainty which nags at the back of your mind and keeps you constantly looking up the weather on your phone. It’s a way of life, this anxiety which sends me scurrying for help when it mushrooms out of control in the middle of the night. Julia

The Pandemic

Unprecedented Unprecedented Unprecedented Present distress repeated, repeated recent disease breathed present unprecedented, sent in coughs. Cough, cough, cough. This disease sent on the air. Cough, cough, cough. Unprecedented present breathed in unprecedented disease breathed out unprecedented hand-washing unprecedented deaths dent the present. Can’t breathe. Can’t breathe out. Dented breathing. Cough. Present deaths unprecedented. Enough. Too many deaths. Too many people. Too many families. This time Covid19. Another SARS disease present. Unprecedented but not unexpected 2020. Sue  Foster

Feathers

It’s as if all the birds In every weather Had dropped every feather The weight sometimes Of all those why's A ton of lead Or a ton of words unsaid Down on a feathered bed The weight belies The width of squawks When the birds are dead And they sing remembering When a ton of song Weighed the same as Fly away Autumns Flu away fall Feather or not Bird at all. Stephen Kirin

Lichen a Plenty

Lichen a plenty,  With your crispy and crusty Foliose forms Lichen reveals the Hidden substrate beneath. Ashley

So Much Yellow

There’s gorse, of course and sometimes broom, the lichens yellow on the tomb and every churchyard has its fill of lovely yellow daffodils. There’s dandelions and celandine and yellow primrose, I suppose, and fluffy yellow chicks are born and yellow toads from slippery spawn. And green is seen on every lawn, at April’s end the woods turn blue and tulips bloom in pink and red with drooping leaves in every bed but yellow bellows all around: spring’s mating call, a joyful sound. Julia Duke

Lace-like Shadows

Dancing with lace-like shadows of forgotten worlds, the tortoiseshell creeps slowly, the last energies to lie upon the rough bark. With folded wings, Madame butterfly is no more til Spring. Charlotte

Post Traumatic Stress

Your steps alert yet furtive, Your actions so subdued, The walls you'd built around yourself, No others heard or viewed. Your senses sharp and heightened, Reacting to small cues, Kept memories lingering in your head No others heard your news. Self protection served its purpose, Of course, and that made sense, But little did you know that, It was all in the past tense. Relief it was short lived, in fact, The price that was to pay Was that years had passed before your eyes With not living in today. So walls built strong like concrete, Impermeable to most, Restricted you so badly, With the past a haunting ghost. Those dreams seemed like reality, Like you were still right there, The terror you experienced then again, Unjust and unfair. In later years you found a way, A chance to start again, Each gentle step to live once more, Crawling gently from your den. Putting back the chaos, That ran amok inside your head, Gave you strength to start to live, And deal with all the dread. Then pea...

Who Is Saving The World?

The recycler, bicycler, bio-masser and solar paneller, the sustainable developer, the charity worker, the medics (sans frontieres?), fundraisers and carers, givers and listeners, growers of organics, designers of biodegradables. Genetic engineers? Surgeons and researchers, forgivers and forgetters, Billy the bug hunter, Immy the mathematician, Troy the paratriathelete, Wendy the wigwam maker. The ones who go last, the ones who smile, the ones who don’t want to argue about it, the ones who give up their seat, the ones who calm a storm, the ones who cook up a feast, the ones who sing praises, the ones who shine, Auntie Gwen and Malala…… ….and I drink water from a glass bottle. Sue Foster Image by Fernando via Unsplash .