Moving on

That other life
is dead to me now
I have shaken the dust
from my feet

it’s hard to believe
that some of those people
ever mattered to me
the way they behaved

but the worst is over
and I have no regrets
happy days are here again

Last week from a train
on a narrow irrigation
channel cutting across
farmland I saw three swans

their long necks curved
they were preening
their feathers

it was just before sunset
and the sky was red
with shepherd’s delight

and she was beside me
her hand in mine
to all intents and purposes
love

John Lyons

Autumn hush

So quiet here
you can hear
the leaves fall

the children are
back at school
summer games

are over
In the spaces
between the houses

time limps along
in the silence
of empty life

John Lyons

Bring it on

Life a timed test
          anything may happen
or as the case may be
          not :
sprawled on a blanket
          or a towel spread out
on the sand
          the chatter of children
and gulls in the air
          and the sea gently
licking the shore
          such moments of peace

fragments of eternity
          time for this
time for that
          and the leaves
itching to fall
          to lay the boughs bare
a deep depression heading in
          from the Atlantic
autumn sunsets
          and then winter

Bring it on I say
          while there’s breath
in me and love
          bring it on

John Lyons

Indian summer

As though we haven’t had
enough sun for one year

not that I’m complaining
the best summer

in a long while
and the sun brings out

the best in us all
it quickens our step

puts a smile on our faces
and lightens the daily load

John Lyons

And so September

And so September
      hanging there in the trees
bowed boughs heavy with seed
      there in the tired leaves
that long to fall
      September with its warm
honeysuckle days
      its cold nights
birds gathered
      in their thousands
on wires and fences and rooftops
      under starter’s orders
: perhaps I too
      should follow them south

September with its whispers
      its intimations of mortality
and a whimpering mind
      that traipses through
the city’s dusty avenues
      that journeys out
into the frail suburbs
      of my past in empty reflection

Dark season of silence
      of enhanced fragility
of bygones gone by
      all the pain and loss
and yet still the hope
      the faith in new seeds sown
that no more love
      will be laid to waste

John Lyons