Masterclass
The shed was an apex all-wood
home-built construction,
erected that furnace of a summer
when we burnt in the shade
and our feet turned to leather,
a backdrop of screaming swifts
swooping like mad dot banshees
in the forget me not blue.
We stood back and admired
the woody quality of its sturdiness,
overlooked the imperfections;
worth the blisters and swearing,
the seed drawers labelled,
garden tools hanging in place,
as we toasted our cleverness
and soaked in the homebrew.
Beginnings then followed:
new this, new that, till the shed
became part of the scenery
and the expert moved in,
ostensibly preoccupied en route,
unnoticed, overwintering in a crack,
casing the joint for suitability
tasting the wood like a connoisseur.
Then as we prepared for the year,
quietly, purposefully, she graced our space,
moved in, gnawed, chewed, sculpted,
moistly applying the axioms of Euclid,
compound eye, to mandible, to shed,
constructing a near spherical beauty
while laying dynastic foundations
we felt privileged to observe.
One Called Paul
Five drab juveniles land outside my window;
goth eyeliner, raucous and rucking over territory,
fouling up my window ledge, five floors high.
Under murmured shadows, three leave suddenly,
startle the two, who, drawing close, look to each other,
before the larger wings it with thousands in late city skies.
The smallest catches reflections in the high rise glass,
checks its rag tag feathers for signs of iridescence
emerging in the half-light of a noisy urban dusk.
But through my window, I see only reluctance in movement.
I wonder if this one’s worried; ill-prepared to join in
and just needs a little more time to practise.
Jonathan Humble’s Poetry Collection Fledge is published by Maytree Press and available here.
Find out more about Jonathan on our Contributors’ Page.
(Photo: Stephen McCowage/flickr.com/ CC-BY-NC-ND-2.0)
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