SIXTH DAY

The sea, the sky, and now, dry land to fill
With life that walks or jumps or crawls or swings:

Skin, or fur, or scales,
Hooves, or claws, or nails,
Grasping paws, or waving tails:
Wherever the opportunity, life clings.

Food and fun and cuddles,
Strength, excitement, muddles,
Hunting games and happy huddles;
Courtship, family life:
All, achievement brings.

THE BUTTERFLY

Spring has summoned it out of the prison,
Crawling high to dry in the sun;
Surprised to feel cramped wings widen,
Pump full of fluid, grow crisp and strong.

Dainty legs clutch a swaying stalk
While the dizzy head comes to terms
With a being totally changed: no walk-
ing round chewed leaves now; confirms

The leg-count -- six -- hardly relevant !
The delicate, strong-as-steel wings
Could transport an elephant
If built in proportion. Tough rings

Encase the thorax: cockpit, instruments,
Payload, sensors and signalroom.
A few days’ flight – no documents –
To flutter in the sunshine; assume

That life was made for nectar and courtship:
Twirling dances among the flowers.
Coded perfumes call to partnership.
Scented summonses fill the hours.

Does the butterfly know, it’s our symbol of glory?
Carefree beauty, at play in the sun?
The old self shrugged off; a neat allegory
For our Resurrection, to eternal Son?

Forget the days of munching cabbage,
Dull camouflage of green or brown,
The helplessness of the chrysalis stage,
Exhaustion and nausea, you thought you’d drown.

Now is the ecstasy of airy freedom,
Sweet indolence in scented bowers;
Guest at the honey-pots in floral kingdom;
Basking in the sunshine, or visiting the flowers.

’Mid the extravagance of florid elegance
Ferrying fertility among the blooms;
Pollen’s courier, vital grains to tell again
Colours for posterity, structure and perfumes.

Messenger of peace, nobody’s enemy,
Gentle and silent, you hover and twirl;
Fluttering conductor in colour/perfume symphony,
Friend of summer, in a sunfilled world.

LADYBIRDS

God’s only a little boy really!
That’s why he made the ladybird,
Like a tiny tank, marauding freely;
Greenfly-gobbler, quite absurd.

With clockwork legs and plastic armour,
Nursery-toy colours and shape to match,
Black-spotted, red or yellow charmer;
(But stinging nerve-juice to make us scratch!)

Naturalists - (those big little boys!) –
Tell us the colours are thoroughly practical.
Warning to predators: this taste annoys;
And hot-spots for warm starts, thoroughly tactical.

Did you ever think you’d see a tank fly?
Scales lift from fully-adapted controls.
Under the blazing summer sky
They zoom and swarm like flying jewels.

Wham! into me or Wham! into a roseleaf;
Environmental pest-control;
The gardener’s friend, the aphids’ grief,
Defender of the roses: greenfly patrol.

Down at their level, we all love ladybirds,
Clustered for warmth in the new spring sun;
Back to our childhood, loving those spotted sherds.
God who made the ladybird must be a lot of fun!

Nature is thoroughly practical, as well as beautiful. To support and move his wonderful tail, the peacock's muscles are like steel. Roasted peacock was a glamour dish, but extremely tough. For this reason, not for its beauty, the bird represents eternity in medieval art, especially mosaics.

Today's poem concentrates on the beauty.

THE PEACOCK’S PRAISE

The peacock spreads his tail, and stands,
And steps, and stands again.
The thoughtful breeze lifts a few strands
And lets them spread again:
Strands of copper and gilt,
Exquisite workmanship,
And, in another light, a sea-green glint.

The peacock turns, shrrrr-rr-rrs his fan,
And turns, still spread.
His frozen cosmos of whirling eyes,
Copper till now, floods green.
The floating silk –
Such emerald and blue, turquoise and gold –
Medieval colours, jeweller’s craft.

No other prayer is needed.
Here he stands:
Perfect praise and thanks.

Delightful to watch the peahen and her chicks trot through the shrubbery, almost incognito.

THE PEACOCK’S FAMILY

Through the shrubbery, drab, between dry sticks,
Dull as a dowager, steps the quiet peahen.
Almost invisible, three scruffy chicks
Clamber in her wake, like fussy children.

The emperor’s family, yet no regal train
Nor fanfare of outriders clears their way:
A private journey, without fuss or strain:
Among the sheltering twigs no banners sway;

But royal blood will out! Dull plumage, yet
Each peachick flaunts a shimmering coronet.

Twenty years ago, a troupe of peacocks resided in the Museum Gardens in the centre of York. Shoppers got used to shooing them home to the gardens. One was spotted riding the open-top bus. This one lived about half a mile from the main flock, on the roof of a cinema.

STREET PEACOCK

Like any scruffy teenager,
When first they start to roam,
The peacock on the pavement
Half a mile from home;

A ragged autumn morning:
Parked cars and slimy street;
Suddenly, this emperor’s envoy
Precedes us, on dainty feet.

Turn aside to the little churchyard,
Where trees salute the cold.
Here, for your honour’s pleasure,
The ground is spread with gold.

ALBINO PEACOCK

You are unreal! White drift along hot wall,
Like snow among the ivy; gap in the shade;
Resting, cotton-white; the damask fall
Of trailing feathers bids the shadows fade.

White-washed peacock glory! Negative splendour!
Blank nothing where the dazzling shades should shimmer.
No sheen or sparkle to make light your friend or
Tease the shadows with a dancing glimmer.

A cut-out on the path; blank vacancy;
Your bridal train of nothing drains our mind.
Pure feathered emptiness! Sheer nullity!
Our thoughts spin dizzy as we step behind.

White doves have never challenged my belief,
Nor trailed me, captive, in their fluttering track,
But here my wild surmise gets no relief.
I gaze, dumbfounded, at your plain white back.

I have just reread THREE NEW PIGS and found an error. Till the website is mended, I can't correct it. See if you can find it. - Look among the short stories in the DOWNLOADS.

Like many of my poems, this was provoked by the question Why? Why does the male wall up the female? It seems the ultimate in male chauvinism. I hope you enjoy the answer. Hornbills are fruiteaters, very vulnerable because of their size and slowness.

HORNBILLS

Two gossips sitting on a branch,
Bored, relaxed and lazy.
To call them models of romance
Seems distinctly crazy.

Hunched in their sooty feathers
With a megaphone each for a beak;
Crouching like commentators
Waiting their turn to speak;

Companions in beak management
With square, strong tails for balance,
Where is the graceful courtship
Of flirting, feathered romance?

Security’s a problem for hornbills:
They aspire to a peaceful life,
So the doting hornbill husband
Walls up his darling wife.

Safe from the thieving monkeys
And circling birds of prey;
Proud chatelaine in her turret
Rocked by the branches’ sway.

Immured for the species’ safety,
Cramped, on her prison nest,
She turns the eggs over gently,
Brooding and dreaming, at rest.

Back- and forwards the hero
Flies with his gifts of fruit:
Supplies for his cherished captive.
He knows what tastes will suit.

Like Pyramus to Thisbe:
“Oh wall, show me thy chink!”
he looks for the gleaming eyeball
and feathers black as ink.

At last, when the chicks are ready
To recognise father’s call,
What a hooting of hornbills!
As they all break through the wall.

Away to the leafy branches
And lazy contemplation!
Nature’s old-fashioned romantics
Prosper by immuration.