Monet's Water Garden

 

Each lily is a flaring match,

a stud on Monet's 

liquescent

 mind.

.

May Stroll

May’s detonation of summer growth; 

walking down a lane between two hedgerows 

overgrown with cow parsley 

like confetti suspended in its fall,

I feel the intoxication 

of the bees nectar-induced drone; 

the surge of life, an internal fireworks, 

its ticker-tape brilliance, 

the exhilaration of it.

Labour

 

Death has arrived into your breathing:

you labouring to stay alive.

I’ve never been so aware of the lungs as bellows;

how basic the mechanism is

now that all the brain-work is past.

Straining for oxygen all these hours;

we standing by your bed parsing each breathe,

the minute modulations in the sounds,

you hauling oxygen from the room to your blood.

Dog

 

A long way off, across the open strand;

small, minute even, a couple walking a dog.

Picturesque and sweet somehow, their 

silhouettes across the deserted expanse of sand.

And as we stand there looking, the dog starts

to run in our direction. Tiny at first but building

into a shape we recognize, a pit bull coming

arrow-straight to us. 

She sees it early, recognizes the breed, 

knows it’s coming, crossing that quarter of a mile 

directly for her and she is petrified. And it does, 

and is now jumping at her, now a frozen stump. 

The dog persists, not aggressive but it is

a pit bull and she is terror-stricken. 

Across the strand, a quarter of a mile off,

 the couple watch their 'puppy', 

miniaturised to cuteness with distance, 

playing with strangers. And perhaps too, maybe,

 just maybe, one of them is nonchalantly running 

the dog's lead through a half-closed hand.