Green tales and changing skies

These changing skies above, we walk the trees
And tread the path of fallen poplar leaves,
Brown-turning as the gold of summer fails.
As slow as heron-flight, the bright time flees
With gentle grace, so nothing truly grieves,
Though cold is rising in dusk’s misty veils.

There is green still, just look. Beneath the growing grey,
Green grows rosette-creep, root-tangle that weaves
Carpet-patterns, dabbed with sun, and exhales
Such light, whispering, as night slips into day,
Earth tales.

How did it go?

I enjoy writing to strict meter and rhyme. Not sure about the abrupt ending as a substitute for the volta of a traditional sonnet, but it’s the part of Pied Beauty I like least too. One injunction to praise God in a poem is more than enough as far as I’m concerned.

-Jane Dougherty

Christmas
Cold withers us and skies grow heavy grey;
the nights draw dark and winter’s hand takes hold
of children in their fleecy coats and gloves

who long for time to pass ’til Christmas Day.
They play their parts with gifts of scents and gold
in stories from the Holy Land relived.

But do these stories have a message now?
A planet torn by war, our conscience cold?
How can a deity who sits above
convince all people that they must allow
capacity for love?

How Did It Go?

I found this one a lot easier than some of the others. I’ve written quite a few full sonnets but never a shortened one. The last line is the trickiest part.

-Tim Fellows

Bios and Links

-Jane Dougherty

lives and works in southwest France. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her poems and stories have been published in magazines and journals including Ogham Stone, the Ekphrastic Review, Black Bough Poetry, ink sweat and tears, Gleam, Nightingale & Sparrow, Green Ink and Brilliant Flash Fiction. She blogs at https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/ Her poetry chapbooks, thicker than water and birds and other feathers were published in October and November 2020.

=Tim Fellows

is a poet and writer from Chesterfield whose poetry is heavily influenced by his background in the Derbyshire coalfields – family, mining, politics, and that mix of industry and countryside that so many mining areas had.