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Remembrance
If your passing soul were a butterfly
I'd grasp for your wings as you go,
A caress warm and light
As you pass out of sight,
A whisper of love tender, low.
Or blossom in springtime that flutters down
And gently alights on my palm,
A scent sweet and soft
The breeze bears aloft
And whisks you away from all harm.
Perhaps drops of rain from a passing cloud
Joining the tears on my face.
"Don't cry," - murmurs near,
"That I am not here,
We all have a time and a place."
And yet it is hard when the coffin drops
To think that the soul carries on,
That there in the ground
Beneath the black mound
Only the body has gone.
But sometimes at night in the depth of dreams
You still have your place and your part,
For what's left behind
Is here in my mind.
Your soul is locked close in my heart.
copyright A Tinn
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Winter Trees
Skeletal giants silhouetted against a wintry sky,
Autumn coat finally fragmented, shredded to lie
In sodden misery beneath the ice-tipped grass.
Birds seek cold comfort in your bare-branched embrace,
Searching for signs of spring upon your face,
Huddled together, hoping, waiting for winter to pass.
copyright A Tinn
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Web of Deceit
Twisting contorting eternally spinning
Turning cavorting no end or beginning
Patterns created in climbing descending
Fine shining filaments ceaselessly tending
Dewdrops at daybreak each caught and collected
Spectrum of colour in sunlight reflected
Network of beauty
Awaiting its duty
Silk threads enfolding
Clasping and holding
A gift for the creature
Of delicate feature
Who waits at the centre
For those that might enter
Who readily greets them
And steadily eats them
copyright A Tinn
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Bones in Arches ( Henry Moore Foundation Visit) Study the
smooth, green arch of bronze and ponder -
Sun-kissed cheeks welcome the cooling breeze -
Bones part cause for Moorish inspiration,
Set solid here, among lush, verdant trees.
Guardian stones of worship, Druid-chosen,
Another source to sketch and paint and cast.
How many bones were buried with your making
Mistletoe-loving priesthood of the past?
Thiepval, on your giant walls, name etchings,
Youth in thousands gave their lives in vain,
Their bones in mud remaining undiscovered,
This final war that would be fought again.
And so the arch of bones and bones in arches,
From nature came, to nature shall return.
Stroke the smooth, warm metal now and wonder -
Is there a lesson here for man to learn?
copyright A Tinn
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Thoughts in the Gibberd Garden (Autumn 2003) Many years ago,
half a lifetime maybe,
we came down here with the children to see
the garden. They ran around and played
among the statues and trees. To me
it was a joy to hear the sounds they made.
We followed with sprightly step, our two,
as they dodged in and out as youngsters do.
We were youthful then and little thought
that like gnarled, old trees, we too would be caught
in the web of age. How little we knew.
Now as I sit here beneath autumnal trees
among sere leaves swirled by a teasing breeze,
I wish to turn back time just for a while
perhaps a short summer of youth's reprise,
to watch my children play and see them smile.
copyright A Tinn
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The Chinese Cockle Pickers In Morecambe Bay the waters rise
beneath the murky, midnight skies.
And on a sand-bar near the beach
where cockles lie within their reach
Chinese cockle pickers stand
upon the ever-shifting sand.
"Strangers tread here cautiously."
Murmur, whisper, salt-spun breath,
Sirens of the Irish sea,
Serenade of death.
Unwary, though, the eighteen still
search on. These cruel waters will
surround their prey and suck them down,
while friends in horror watch them drown.
Their shouted warnings sear the air
but cannot reach their comrades there.
"They come, they go." Relentlessly
repeated song from salt-spun breath,
Sirens of the Irish Sea,
Serenade of Death.
"This is a place we never tread,"
the locals say, as eighteen dead
are pulled from waters harsh and cold.
"Not at night. The times we've told
authority. No warning though,
was given. So they did not know."
"We warned. Take heed of treachery."
Too late to learn from salt-spun breath,
Sirens of the Irish Sea,
Serenade of Death.
copyright A Tinn |
