Greenlane Poetry

All Saints 3pm
Assisted Sight-seeing
At the Town Station
Bad Day
Bar des Sports, Charly-sur-Marne
Before and After the Watershed
Bucket List
Call to Witness
Carte Postale
Clerk of Works
Cricket at the Mill
Curious Meeting
Dedication
Dog in the Night
Easter Saturday at Festubert
Fargate
Fargate-duplicate
First Light
Force Nine
Forge Island
Furnaces
Ghosts
Grand-dad Smith
Half Empty
Harraga
In Glen Howe Park
In Provence
Incident
Kilner's Bridge
Lady
Last Train
Lilacs
Long Time Ago
Magpies
Milennium
Mungy Lane
North Line
Nurses
Outfield
Painting By Numbers
Patriots
Per Ardua
Per Ardua
Pioneers
Poor Pierre
Release
Rememberings
Romeny
Routine Visit
Runner
Sawn Moor
September
September Song
Solstice
Spring Training
Students in Crookesmoor
Terminus
The Don at Swinton
The Festive Season
The Hawk in the Tree
The Lavender Feast at Saullt
The Runners in the Fields
The Seasons
The Unpturned Chair
Treatment Days
Trips to the Seaside
Up Train
Valley Mist
Vendanges
Victory Gardens
Watten-Eperlecques
West Wind
Weston Park
What Love Is
What Three Words*
Winthrop Park

--chosen-work--

Lilacs



A portly lady boards our crowded bus
her destination Anston Cemetery
floods our bus with sunlight by her smiles
tissue-wrapped I cannot see her flowers
but the fragrance of wild lilacs fills our deck
the next two miles

As she alights our course is further on
our spirits have been lifted by her joy

that her sorrow not to share
we have none

There is brown on the lilac
its promise is spent
the sweet dreams of springtime
with summer relent
now all the young startlings are leaving their home
and late-nesting goldfinches


Since first you fired
the arrows of your glance
even in fields and woods blue-hazed
in chill of early morning

the fondest memories are of times
we did not dare to chance