Hygge Feature #23 Promises of Spring

In January one can start planning outdoor projects with a sense of them becoming possible soon. Small signs of new growth delight us. There’s talk of what to grow in the allotment as we note bulbs pushing through, though there is still a chance of snow and frost.  We also fondly remember previous springs.

Photo: Snowdrops in Daresbury, by Angela Topping

 

First Earlies

Cold metal freezes the fingers
grasping for the smooth
wooden handle’s safety.
Compost, nurtured and transformed
from last year’s waste,
trickles from the silver spade
into the trench bottom.

Potatoes sprutted, in the warmth
of the greenhouse, ready
for the burial routine of spring.

Carefully positioned,
spruts downward,
to aid their search for food.
A compost blanket,
delicately sprinkled on top
and a prayer, softly spoken,
for a prosperous harvest
in the sunshine of
summer days ahead.

 

 
Sharon Fishwick

 

 

Helmsley Silver Birch

Arboreal ballerina,

pirouetting confetti,

assumes first position

in an old English churchyard.

 

Harry Gallagher

 

KILLINS LANE 

High banks
along this very old lane.
Trees with ivied feet,
fingers just touching.

Oh that you would talk to me.
Yes a library has knowledge,
but it is the stars
that know your secrets.

Maureen Weldon

 

Published by Coffee House Poetry magazine

Included in her pamphlet Midnight Robin, published by Poetry Space Ltd.

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Hygge Feature #13 Domestic Delights

The simple joys of home: a bunch of daffodils, a bowl of hyacinths, blue and white pottery, candlelight and starlight, all can lift the spirits without expense. Today I have chosen one of mine, previously unpublished, because it goes so well with this photo and Maureen’s hyacinths, and Brian Johnstone’s meditative poem rounds off beautifully.

Photo Credit: Lucy Byrne

 

Midnight Robin

 

While the sky shimmers like shot silk,
chimney pots a toothy smile,
I count the pots, 1 2 3 4 5.

On my kitchen table, sheets and sheets
of screwed up poems,
I will flatten them tomorrow
for shopping lists.

While perfumed smells of hyacinths
bring memories of my mother:
‘they make lovely Christmas presents’
she would say, as she potted and tended …

The evening moves along
as evenings do…
The moon a half golden bracelet.
The sky cluttered with stars.

All is still, no cars, no trains.
And in this stillness
the midnight robin sings.

Maureen Weldon

First appeared in her pamphlet Midnight Robin, published by Poetry Space (2014)

 

January

This is the still time of year.
The snows have gone,
melting back into the atmosphere.
Not even snowdrops dare to break
the frosty earth. Indoors in their china bowl
paper-white narccissi sail like stars
against the window’s glossy black glass,
unnatural, forced from the bulb too soon.
The new year’s bombs lie undetonated.
Storms must be weathered.
This is the still time of night.
I am trying to unbury the past,
to find flowers still hidden in the bulb,
this time to nurture them.

Angela Topping

 

HERMITAGE
Mrs Baxter’s Lang Rig, St Andrews

The sense of habitation
this stone-built structure gives
has married three to one,

placed human souls
between the meat and wine,
with fire to warm and candlelight

to talk or dine by, here
where garden gives to orchard
and the walls protect.

This simple grasp of needs sets
pigeon boles in tiers to fill
the attic space with burbled song,

the while to raise
as fowl. The table waits below.
Beneath its feet the vaulted cellar

houses vintage upon vintage
labelled, racked, awaiting hands
to pair them to the meal,

to light the wick and kindle flame,
to feast on what this space
has stored against

the cold of winter, summer heat,
the fuss and bustle
of the house and its affairs

all left behind, deferred
to this retreat inhabited by ghosts
conversing, raising up a glass.

Brian Johnstone

Poem by Maureen Weldon

THE PAST

I have left the past,
or so I thought;
yet it sits in every corner,
sits on my back.

Sometimes the long garden with a hammock
to swing in, to laze in,
near the sweet peas, near the roses.

Sometimes a white breeze
salty from the ocean.

It is Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales.

It is war-time, it is peace-time.

It is a wedding vow torn by the wind.

It is sitting around a table, laughing.

It is the dearest dead.

It is christening the baby.

It is like a cave,
or a pass through the mountain.

And always the still small voice.

 

Maureen Weldon

 

[ First published by The Passionate Transitory.

Also to be included in my forthcoming pamphlet MIDNIGHT ROBIN
to be published by Poetry Space Ltd. Editor, Sue Sims ]