A pair of ravens
in synchronised flight
angle, tumble
arc and glide
croak rasped asides
and as silhouettes slide
across the sky
and out of sight.
In nighted garb
with ragged sleeves
he leads their merry dance
until she concedes
then, in the privacy of a
beech tree’s canopy
he walks all over her
until she conceives.
she waves away my refusal, demurely insists
then chooses a chocolate finger and one with coffee cream in it
from the saucer founding a cathedral of assorted biscuits.
She then quietly recounts to me her day, of
bicycling to her sisters, of catching her dress in the chain, of
hearing a cuckoo call whilst free-wheeling along Capps Lane, of
delighting in the open face of Poor-Man’s Weather-Vane, of
resting in the candle tree’s quiet relieving shade, of
sunbathing with Sophie and watching the kitten-cats play, of preparing
a salad and picnicking beneath the shadowing pear tree boughs, of
strolling through Moreton Meadows, still brilliant with flowers,
of stopping at Helen’s Pantry in Starlington’s Lamb Parade
for a dainty cake and a glass or two of home made lemonade, of
idling the long way home and laughing arm in arm
by way of Lady Mildmay’s Lane, skirting Aston Farm…
“Oh!” Alyse suddenly exclaims
her hand to her mouth, her crystal eyes aflame…
“I’ve just remembered my last night’s dream!”
Then sounding rather vague, she says
“I guess that I was telling myself I’m on to a very good thing…
I found a shiny sixpence in a weed-bed under a wire fence
and half a crown, tail-up, head-down, beneath a clipped box hedge
a ha’penny then caught my eye and so a bright new penny that did lie
half hiding a shilling which led me to a sovereign
then a silver coin blushing and so on along a line…
till I was miles from home, quite where I did not know
and still dropping coins into my shepherdesses purse
on and on and to and fro, all night long until in a hay meadow
I found that my good fortune had quite suddenly reversed!
Not a penny, not a farthing, not a shilling could I find
in my purse or in my pocket, strewn before me or behind
and it was in my flustered searchings that out the corner of my eye
I saw you by the kissing gate where every evening we kiss goodnight…
and I awoke wanting to be with you, then, and forever more…
be we rich and rudely healthy, be we laid up and church mouse poor!”
Once is an experience
Twice is a comparison
Three times is a bore
Drew Smith - Writer & Doodler 