THE LONDON PLANE 

Our neighbour's 'London Plane'

bares its wild dark trunk to all,

and to nothing, but the illusion

of an early morning sky.

A play of light infuses

lower limbs, leaning over 

the warming 

fancy brick drive,

leaves twitching from dim

to glow, at the whim of the wind

like faulty traffic lights

stuck at Amber.

Soon, stripped truly bare

the tree will appear, quite scary.

Stormy days will capture

its nervy networked head

in a crazy nodding dance,

powerless to hold

any semblance of grace.

Shall the Plane

in train with all else

clinging to the planet

surviving another turn

around our Sun,

illuminate some other day

without a match struck?

Likely it will remain

undaunted by a tall saw

or the passing of 

wheels across its feet.

June 2025

CHRISTMAS DAY AND GAZA

It was another day of shock,

submission. The air

hung turgid over land,

oceans desponded

without perk of intention

as though time were dallying

and moon might not even show

to tune the tide.

In Gaza, where a searing loss of seed

has spilled into the sand,

twelve bodies piled up against a hospital.

‘Where are the humans’ it was said.

And it seemed irrespective of age or gender

every body wept.

When again on earth, the measure of death

outweighed the value of life.

While upon these oft times not pleasant lands

where interdependence has no flag,

where justice remains a clogged machine,

and faith in coherent process seemed extinct,

pursuit of Christmas things ensued.

Yet a web, a golden thread is cast,

brighter than sun, inextinguishable,

kind and true.

to human kind is given

the choice for peace.

But what is life, what can it be,

when Grand mothers and Greats

declare they too would bear arms

against those who daily prescribe

death to the defenceless,

and bring shame on earth for Millenia.

Life will be

an opportunity.

And the peace out stretched

not about cessation of wars

more truly about the cause.

Christmas 2023, 2024, revised 2025