Looking up..."Above us only sky."

 I've stolen a John Lennon line....

The skies this week have been wonderful....

The blue is so blue ...

The  clouds scurry across the horizon...chasing one another...

The birch trees flaunt their elegant tresses...

...in the spring winds...

...birds swoop and glide on the strength of these messengers...

Have a good weekend.....

A Poem for Thursday...."The End of the Line"

With so much relayed over the media and the papers full of the sad stories of flooded homes and broken journeys...I'm putting up this post as a memory of another sea...another train journey...another ending...though for how long none of us can be sure any longer.

The End Of The Line

Let's go live at the end of the line
Where breakers fall over rolling stones.
We'll ride the train that we rode when young,
Watch how the steam mists our view of the sea
As it hisses and cools on the iron, on the brass.
And the cry of the gulls as they dive, as they soar
Will welcome us back
Will welcome us back.

Let's board the train that we rode long ago.
Where the end of the line will have water and sand.
We'll be welcomed again by the mewing of gulls
By the smell of spun sugar and hot lardy chips.
And there, will be space enough for our thoughts
With salt winds to blow away stale urban fog.
To welcome us back
To welcome us back.

They're saying the crust is beginning to crack.
That the cold winds of change are blowing our way.
Yet, when I take  the journey again to the end
Of the line, where the seagulls are soaring above,
To the edge of the tide, to the line in the sand...
The memory of all things, of all being well
Embraces me back
Embraces me back.

A Poem for Thursday.

The End of the Line

Let’s go and live at the end of the line.
Where breakers fall over rolling stones.
We’ll board the train that we rode when young,
Watch how the steam mists our view of the sea
As it hisses and cools on the iron and the brass.
And the cry of the gulls as they dive, as they soar
Will welcome us back
Will welcome us back.

Let’s board the train that we rode long ago,
Where the end of the line will have water and sand.
We’ll be welcomed again by the crying of gulls
The smell of spun sugar and hot lardy chips.
There, will be space enough for our thoughts
And salt winds that blow away stale urban fog.
To welcome us back,
To welcome us back.

They say that the crust is beginning to crack.
That the cold winds of change are blowing our way.
Yet when I take the journey again to the end
Of the line, where the seagulls are soaring above
To the edge of the tide, to the line in the sand.
The memory of all of things, of all being well
Embraces me back
Embraces me back.

 
This one has been linked to the gooseberry garden random poems week 17 ..."nostalgia"

A Poem for Thursday.

The Murmuration

Did Steinbeck have the low-down

on starlings?

Someone did.

Are they held together

by the elastic string of time?

Their timing is certainly precise.

Even gulls

who get caught up

in that display

avoid black wings

that shimmer

in the late sun.

Hunter and Hunted

Once again we cycled down to the river.
The weather is on the turn now, but the Ferry area was just as calming.
The gulls were congregated on the bank opposite waiting for the incoming tide.

Why had they risen as one with such noise?

Then we spotted a lone bird hovering over the reeds.

More joined it, until there were four or five of them circling and hovering, still and menacing.

Suddenly up from the reeds came a caccophany of noise as a flock of crows rose high in the sky.

I managed to snap them as they rose.
Only later when I viewed on the Lumix site did I notice in amongst the crows a very different shape......
.......buzzards I'm told!
Nature is so many different things. We love the sense of peace that it can bring us...
.... but abhor the "red in tooth and claw". Yet one cannot be without the other.

Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote as part of the poem In Memorium A.H.H.   these lines......

Are God and Nature then at strife,
That Nature lends such evil dreams?
So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life;

That I, considering everywhere
Her secret meaning in her deeds,
And finding that of fifty seeds
She often brings but one to bear,

I falter where I firmly trod,
And falling with my weight of cares
Upon the great world's altar-stairs
That slope thro' darkness up to God,

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,
And faintly trust the larger hope.