Hauntings

When I am unencumbered by a body's weight

and sprightly as a beam of light

you'll never find me in the graveyard gloom at night

or, half-glimpsed, wraith-like in the rain;

you'll find me in the morning woods, climbing trees again. 

Look first to tall Scots Pine, the rich red bark and soaring boughs

the kind of tree too hard to climb but easy now. 

Then look to Cedar's airy, sunlit canopy. 

Wherever light within a shadow sits, it's likely me.

I'll probably give Birch a miss,  I love the tree 

but wouldn't want to sit in such a tickly canopy.

And other trees like Ash or Yews

are nice enough but lack the views.

So,  if you miss me, don't look down.

I won't be lying underground,

Look upward to the tops of trees. 

That dappled light might just be me.

Dancing in water

It was a madness of the noblest kind, 

fifty people in the river, dancing with strangers 

soaking but laughing. 

Musicians on the bank, 

without a music stand between them, 

strung notes to melodies 

and melodies to shapes for dancers. 

I nearly wept to see such love 

of music, dance and water.

Such defiant pointlessness of joy;

or maybe just the utter joyfulness 

of pointless celebration. 

When my hope is wearied 

by despair of drones and bombs and guns, 

or green and living lands turned grey and grim, 

and broken lives enslaved by exploitation and addiction, 

May I always remember these strangers, 

dancing together young and old, 

soaked but laughing, lapping up 

the innocence of pointless pleasure 

as the river, pointless and purposeless itself, 

chuckled to the sea.

(Inspired by on Sidmouth Folk Festival's unofficial "Dance in the Ford")