Monday canvas

Air moves in arabesques
           time in hot pursuit
a centrifugal force that runs
           through the blood
Possibilities are endless
           in this life-phase
in the rising fall of love-tides
           in which doors are binary
windows looking glasses
           dreams itinerant

Swirls of colour
           on the canvas
but soon the leaves
           will settle
Today the sun rose
           higher than ever
it stopped the fox
           in its tracks
it changed the tune
           of every bird
as its warm breath
           passed over the land

Breakers on the seashore
           ruffle the pebbles
and suck at the sand :
           there’s always more work
to be done and more love
           to be made

John Lyons

Revised text

Love’s simplicity

The stem
that rises

up from
the earth

green
and fresh

that flowers
and stands

tall
in its delicate

beauty
if but

for a few
brief days

John Lyons

Back in the day

Summers
           we would wander up
to the lake
           go boating
or sun ourselves
           in the open air pool
the lake is still there
           the small rowboats
that encouraged the swans
           to keep to themselves

The grass is no greener
           than it was
when we were children
           sometimes the summers
were long and hot
           sometimes not
since then
           so much has passed
and yet still
           so much remains

John Lyons

On a summer’s day

Sat in the sun yesterday
           we’re old friends
we go way back
           I often say
I owe everything
           to the sun
From my perch
           I surveyed the garden
the deep green of the grass
           the pink and red roses
the white and yellow blossom
           on neighbouring bushes

I’ve grown accustomed to the calls
           of birds who live locally
know some of their melodies
           off by heart –
they owe everything
           to the sun too
and like me
           they go way back

It was a glorious summer’s day
           and I just sat there
silently soaking it all up
           musing upon the relativity
of all things and communing
           with the relations

John Lyons

What survives

What survives
           in the flesh of memory
the integument of tenderness
           trust in the ease of being
alongside her
           our lives routed
through Venice
           through Budapest
through Paris
           and above all London

Love that filters out
           the backdrop of chaos
bringing order
           where there is none
bringing hope
                      where there is none
and belief
           in our kindred selves

What survives
           is the knowledge
that there can be
           nothing better
nothing deeper
           nothing closer
than the love
           we shared

sooner
           not later
now
           and forever

John Lyons

At break of day

Nobody teaches us
           the simplest things
that for example
           time and love move
at their own pace
           neither can be hurried
but their rhythms
           must be respected
at all costs

Love
           the gift
that life offers us
           the capacity to receive
as much as to bestow
           but unthinkingly
instinctively
           as the wind moves
through the bones of trees
           as the rain seeps deeply
into the soil of our birth
           as the sun feeds
every movement
           every caress
as one body binds
           to another

John Lyons

The brave man

And so to live
the warm antiquity of self
in a world grown cold
green eyes that look
to the forgiving sky

and in the night
fresh stars appear
– the wine is good
and love is always
a prospect

That brave man
looks and learns
and is not afraid
to relinquish the past

to distance himself
from all that is false
or faint-hearted

John Lyons

This revised poem is based on a reading of two poems by Wallace Stevens, ‘The Brave Man” and “A Fading of the Sun” from an early seminal collection, Ideas of Order (1936). The accompanying painting is an old camembert lid splattered with leftover colours so as not to waste.