Bird-brained

A sudden rush of wings heralds
a thrush in triumph with a snail
shining wetly in its beak.

A second flurry and a second
bird appears, brownish-black,
aggressive movements: I want that!

The thrush heads off, hiding deep
among the million roses’ thorns.
A black eye looks at me and then

The blackbirds’ wife with one bold move
is standing just inside the room
which smells of ironing and clean shirts –

a blink of reckless possibility –
to wreak havoc in the warm clean space
with feathers, droppings, frenzied wings …

But no. She turns, and hops away
a bird again, in her own place.
The snail? Dead meat. The sun still shines.

C.M.M. 07/08

Once ...

In the hot silence
while he slept
and only the flies sang
she made the basket
strong with love
to hold this one most precious thing
and gave it, dry-eyed,
to the waiting flood.

© C.M.M. 08/08

Garden at noon

The garden, Kington
Originally uploaded by goforchris

The sun’s light is such as to
obliterate all colour save the
red and purple in a pot
behind which a gang of
glossy bees plunder thick lavender.
Another casual urn is tightly packed
with small blooms –
such careless profusion betraying
the industry of cooler days.
Behind the tall poppy-brides
a sinister trampling suddenly ends
as a blackbird emerges, ruffled
in foolishness at being caught.
Pink roses hang in full-term weight
above the hidden path, guarded by
a spiky sentinel in a tall pot.
And as the tall trees toss in the
wind’s stir, three black jets
scream belatedly as they wheel.
Do they look, the men within,
to see below this garden stuffed with life
and fly on, their hot metal tombs
filled at once with remembered scents?

© C.M.M. 07/08

Llananno revisited

Llananno church
Originally uploaded by goforchris

In an empty church
where once a poet prayed
I sat, the sudden cool
a contrast with the world
of sun and life and heat
beside the river’s glint,
beneath the hurried road.

Above the skewed cross
behind the dying flowers,
the empty candlesticks,
a huge, green tree
filtered the sun's light
which flickered on the stone
as the great mind of God
thrust a small pulse of its power
into my waiting soul.

©C.M.M.

I recently visited this tiny church in the Welsh border country, a church which is barely ever used, a church immortalised in a poem by R.S.Thomas who liked to visit it in much the same way as I did.