Summer Farm

Henry Mosler

Summer Farm 


Straws like tame lightnings lie about the grass
And hang zigzag on hedges. Green as glass
The water in the horse-trough shines.
Nine ducks go wobbling by in two straight lines.
A hen stares at nothing with one eye,
Then picks it up. Out of an empty sky
A swallow falls and, flickering through
The barn, dives up again into the dizzy blue.
I lie, not thinking, in the cool, soft grass,
Afraid of where a thought might take me – as
This grasshopper with plated face
Unfolds his legs and finds himself in space.
Self under self, a pile of selves I stand
Threaded on time, and with metaphysic hand
Lift the farm like a lid and see
Farm within farm, and in the centre, me.

Norman McCaig 


“Threaded on time…” A pile of selves. Ha! Interesting. Also the idea of lifting a lid and looking down into the scene. Maybe we should be afraid of where our thoughts might take us! Or maybe we just need more practice at it.

Hen's Nest

Mara Schasteen

Hen's Nest

Among the orchard weeds, from every search,

Snugly and sure, the old hen's nest is made,

Who cackles every morning from her perch

To tell the servant girl new eggs are laid;

Who lays her washing by; and far and near

Goes seeking about from day to day,

And stung with nettles tramples everywhere;

But still the cackling pullet lays away.

The boy on Sundays goes the stack to pull

In hopes to find her there, but naught is seen,

And takes his hat and thinks to find it full,

She's laid so long so many might have been.

But naught is found and all is given o'er

Till the young brood come chirping to the door.

John Clare

from The Penguin Book of the Sonnet, ed. Phillis Levin

John Clare wrote a lot about birds. Therefore I like him. Not just his poems – him. There! How’s that for a careful critique!