Wild

I took a friend up to the hills that we all know and love
To show her vistas far and wide and peace from high above.
My good friend was a city girl who seldom left the smoke
And somehow took me by surprise when she turned to me and spoke:

She bade me promise I would watch these hills on her behalf,
And pay good heed to clumsy deeds which threaten nature’s path.
“The countryside needs guardians, who care about the land
To keep a home for creatures who live wild and need a hand,
We’re quick to take their homes and once we build they will be gone
And we’ll forget, but soon regret the passing of their song.”

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North

We steal north
where peaks are crag and caved
and folk are sketched
with sharpened pencils.

Here rheumatic trees
have spindled pointed knees
and blue noses poke
unseasonal blasted clouds.

Sounds hang sharp
shriek pierce and blow
holes in limestoned earth
invoking snow.

They beckon me in
and back I itch to scratch
a path – thin and poor
but these are peaks I know.

Breakfast

Walk out with me in morning feet,
along the edge of spring,
still steeped in snow, our woollen coats
pulled hard against the wind.
There, gowned and slippered, see she stands,
Nature is summoning the land,
It’s time to shine
It’s time to shine
She holds the sunlight in her hand.

Walk out with me in morning feet,
and catch the swooshing loud,
of Nature smoothing cotton sheets
and plumping  pillow clouds.
She lifts the verdant grass to grow
and lusty, showered in the dew,
It’s time to shine
It’s time to shine
will dress our  hillside all anew.

Walk out with me in morning feet,
to greet the waking day,
when preparations are complete
and humans on their way.
Our breakfast on the quilted hill
a secret unrevealed until
It’s time to shine
It’s time to shine
She sweeps our breadcrumbs from her sill.