The joy of swans.


Bright light has come back
and rock doves are making friends,
enjoying a Hathaway pasty,
while listening to the horn player,
shaking hands with a Stratford princess,
comparing notes on poets.

I sat with the retired gardener,
whose willows had been pollarded,
where lovers had hid in wooden boats,
amongst the dappled fronds of the Avon.

He had taken up tobacco again,
after seventeen years,
during the funeral of a companion,
who had tired of life and jumped into the moon.

Chatting with a fellow photographer,
as seasoned players made the road into a stage
and danced the school kids unto their inheritance.

A teacher asked if I would answer the questions of two boys,
to aid their project,
one helped the other to gently read.

A beggar gave fortitude,
on the walking bridge
and the new Swan theatre,
rose as a spring castle to the charm of the sky.

~