Spring

SPRING

Spring is a young girl who having helped
her mother with chores goes, still
with her pinny on, barefoot to where
the sheep graze on a hillside by a pond
There, throwing her straw bonnet aside,
she throws her body down beside her young sister
and picking a buttercup, examines it,
marvelling at the detail of nature,
seeing the sun's colour in its petals
Her sister stares into the water
and wonders what it is her elder knows

© Gerald England

Composed: Edinburgh, 1st July 1979

1980 THE RAINBOW AND OTHER POEMS (Heckmondwyke, Fighting Cock Press)
1981 Britannic Magazine (UK)
1990 Maple Valley Vine (USA)
1992 Poesie India (India)
2002 EOTU (Internet)
2004 Iodine (USA)

Little Boy Not Lost

LITTLE BOY, NOT LOST

Little boy, on the seashore,
little boy, digging a hole in the sand,
do you know about more
than what is in your hand ?

Little boy, digging a hole,
little boy, running to the sea,
do you know your goal
is something that can never be ?

Little boy, filling your bucket,
little boy, running to and fro,
have you seen the big wide net
which will not let you go ?

Little boy, trying to entrap the sea
in one small hole in the ground,
what is it you can see ?
Where is it you are bound ?

Oh, little boy, my little boy,
how foolish, yet how wise,
to treat the ocean as your toy
and never listen to its cries.

Little boy, you cannot trap the ocean,
for it will leak away unseen,
and then, little boy, and then,
only you will ever know it's been.

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Ackworth, 1st June 1966

Publications
1981 DADDYCATION (Ashton under Lyne, New Hope International)
1984 Britannic Magazine (UK)
1989 YOUNG MINDS (Hull, Psychopoetica)
1997 Tara's Poetry Page (Internet)