Category: Nature

The now empty garden

On By jovisgoesIn Life, Loss, Love, muse, Nature, Poetry, RegretLeave a comment

The garden looks lovely at this time of day
but an essential is no longer here
for without your feel for its Gaia
It’s not really a garden now I fear.

I touch a rose and see your beautiful face
in hibiscus and camellia I see it there too
but it misses your gentle encouragement
and their beauty just doesn’t shine through.

I sit on a small garden bench in the shade
and I think of the things that we said
tears start to fall and they just cannot stop
how I wish for those good times instead.

I’ll carry on tending our garden
I know that you’d like it that way
but the magic that lived in the garden
is no longer to be found there each day.

 

©Joe Wilson – The now empty garden 2014

The Unmoving Heron!

On By jovisgoesIn Nature, Poetry, Wildlife3 Comments

DSC_6967

For an age I stared at that heron
my camera poised ready to prove
that if you stare long enough at a heron
the awkward buggers just will not move.

But the moment you put down your camera
and move your eye line a little to one side
the sod takes off while you’re not looking
and there’s loads of loud groans in the hide.

©Joe Wilson – The Unmoving Heron! 2014

My waking hours

On By jovisgoesIn Friendship, Love, muse, Nature, Poetry1 Comment
Joe Wilson Nikon D80 Focal length 270mm F/6.3 1/320sec
Joe Wilson Nikon D80
Focal length 270mm
F/6.3 1/320sec

Pleasant thoughts of beauty
fill my waking hours
watching you, just watching you
as you tend your beloved flowers.

I’ve watched with joy for many years
and I always feel the same
as beautiful as the flowers are
to you they can’t hold a flame.

Flowers grow from your loving care
and in the breeze I see
they seem to smile as you pass them
I think they agree with me.

I sometimes wonder as I watch
how life could be so kind
to grant me life within a world
that allowed me you to find.

And as the dusk approaches
a halo glows round your head
perhaps you are an angel
and I’m in Heaven instead.

©Joe Wilson – My waking hours 2014

The tells.

On By jovisgoesIn Nature, Personal, Poetry, Seasons, Time, Village LifeLeave a comment

beech
I often wake up in the night these days
and if I lie very still and quiet
listening to the house I’m rewarded
as it makes all the nightly noises
that I find are so very reassuring.

Crack!! I recognise that sound
of the little lumps of ice falling
down a chute at the back of the fridge
as it defrosts itself by some
magical force once again.

If I wake soon after I fall asleep
I can still hear the creaking sounds
of the furniture as the springs
seem to relax and get themselves ready
for those who will use it next.

Should I wake nearer to dawn I hear
the gentle gurgle of the hot water
as it makes its way along the pipes
warming the house for the new day and
getting us all ready to rise and face it.

When the day is bright I hear the roof tiles
as they tighten up when the warmth of the sun
slides over the trees at the bottom of
the garden and gradually release their
wonderful rays of light on the house.

It is life and it should never, ever, be taken for granted.

©Joe Wilson – The tells 2014

Air

On By jovisgoesIn Nature, Poetry, Point of View, RegretLeave a comment

air_edited

The air that I breathe
is the air that you breathe
is the air that she breathes
is the air that he breathes
and the air that they breathe.

We should protect it for all of us
for it has become so fragile
from our poor maintenance.

I am ashamed,
we should be ashamed.

©Joe Wilson – Air 2014

The Seed

On By jovisgoesIn Competition, heroes, Nature, Poetry, Seasons, WildlifeLeave a comment

seed_edited

In the boiler-room of life powerful energy is forcing new growth
As a very small shoot pushes its way out of a small seed’s husk
And as if by some magical force it is drawn upwards towards the light
Picking its way through the soil and between the stones that lie
Betwixt its chance of seeing the sun or falling by the way.

Slowly and surely it climbs up to the as yet unknown surface
Struggling in its weakness yet fighting in its single aim
To break through and reach out for the warmth of the sun,
Its fleshy stem hardening as it grows ever taller in its reach
To the sky and its second-year show of bright flowers.

The days march on and soon it develops large broad leaves
Which gather the rains that feed it life right to its roots
From which its energy comes with a force as great as any
In the universe…it is life, it is beauty, it is magical
Till finally it pushes the beginnings of its flowers out.

For all the world to see the majesty that is the purpose
Of its existence in this meadow of life and death, for now
The creatures come to feast on its sweet nectar and they
Will carry its pollen far and wide ensuring that new life will
Always be assured and that the circle of life is complete.

 

©Joe Wilson – The Seed 2014

A View from Above

On By jovisgoesIn Nature, Poetry, Village LifeLeave a comment

ge-hot-air-balloon

To toast the official opening
Of our village Millennium Green
Twelve of us went on a journey
To see sights we’d never seen.

With a degree of apprehension
We were all of one accord
With an enormous basket that was attached
To a hot-air balloon we all got on board.

Whooshhh was the noise from the burner
As the pilot lifted up off the ground
But then as we rose up much higher
It was done with nary a sound.

Slowly we drifted Westwards
Then moving slightly to the South
A dozen brave souls in a basket
Gazed at landscapes with open mouth.

Stafford Castle was way down below us
Then the motorway passed by under too
We soon headed away then from Stafford
And quickly Cannock Chase came into view.

We spotted some fallow deer grazing
Some of them sitting as to retire
Then the pilot again fired the burner
And lifted the basket up much higher.

Finally we reached the maximum height
That we were allowed to reach
Four thousand four hundred and eighty feet
A specific height that our balloon couldn’t breech.

It was then that I saw with amazement
While the evening sun shone at our side
A passenger liner flew up through the clouds
It was a beautiful sight which no-one denied.

And did I get such a fabulous picture
Well of course not, I was too much in awe
By the time I had swung round my camera
A tailplane and the sight was no more.

We were coming to the end of our journey
I thought seeing the plane was the peak
But then we saw Lichfield Cathedral
With its three spires that make it unique.

The experience will always stay with me
Of an evening with a view from above
As we floated about in the heavens
Over countryside in the county I love.

©Joe Wilson – A View from Above 2014

‘August 2000 on a Friday evening in glorious sunshine, the balloon
lying in a heap on Derrington Millennium Green in Staffordshire, UK,
gradually began to fill with air as the pilot and his assistant slowly
pulled at it to allow air into all the creases. Suddenly it stood up
and drifted up into the air, though it was still tethered in four places
to the ground. I had no idea they were so big or so tall.’ ©Joe Wilson2014

A Village

On By jovisgoesIn Nature, Personal, Poetry, Point of View, Village Life, WildlifeLeave a comment
The Local Pub
The Local Pub

The Victoria plum-tree that we planted this year
Is now full of blossom that looks lovely from here
The creamy white flowers and the brightest green leaves
Makes beautiful colour as Springtime relieves.

The garden of Winter, this year so wet
Does blossom herald a ‘best Summer yet.’

It’s quite true of course that village life so snug
Can have a tendency to make one feel smug
But for years our’s has struggled, it now has no shops
And a pub that’s near closure though it still sells the ‘hops.’

We don’t take it lightly the community here
For we know we could lose it which would cost us all dear.

It’s not really the money though the costs would be great
But there’d be no Village Hall and no Summer Fete
No chats with our friends over stiles by the field
Nor any more eggs from the local chicks yield.

We don’t take it lightly the community here
And we will fight to keep it which will cost us all dear.

 

©Joe Wilson – A Village 2014

1914 – We call It Wipers

On By jovisgoesIn heroes, Illness, Poetry, political, War, WildlifeLeave a comment

ypres field guns 1914

Mud goes so stiff as it dries on the clothes
And it gets in the rifles and ammo
And men live in the mud for day after day
And they die there as the death tolls just grow.

The lads call it Wipers, but we know it’s called Ypres
And we don’t know the language but know mud
And the massive field guns that are firing this way
Causing lots of men to stay here for good.

In two months I’ve not heard the sound of a bird
With the fighting and dying you don’t listen
But I saw a dead blackbird lying out in the mud
And memories of home made my eyes glisten.

I’d rather be back at my home on the farm
Tending cattle and working the land
But I’m lying here shooting at men I don’t know
In a hard bloody war that I don’t understand.

We’ll soon be coming to the end of this year
We were told that it wouldn’t last too long
I don’t know how much longer the men can last out
The spirits willing but their bodies aren’t strong.

We’ve been pounded for hours, we’ve been pounded for days
It seems like so long and it’s so cold
There are men who’ve got frostbite and gangrene and sores
But it’s the dysentery that makes some men fold.

When will it end and who will make peace
They’re decisions that aren’t made at the front
But by men back at home who think they know best
Not by poor dying men bearing the brunt.

©JRW2014

One in a group of poems I wrote recognising the centenary of the outbreak of World War I

Seasons

On By jovisgoesIn Nature, Poetry, Seasons, Story Book, verdant, WildlifeLeave a comment

The sun’s shining now, Spring has finally arrived
Through the wettest of Winters, we’ve mainly survived
But the land is still soaked as the year gallops along
Yet daffodils are dancing to their own silent song.

Truly, Nature has a way of putting things right
We can hope that she’ll help in the wet farmland plight
As we look forward to Summer and its brilliant hue
We’ll be out in the garden, there’ll be lots there to do.

It’s the Autumn and the leaves are looking tired
The greens turn to red as if they’re kiln-dried
Then they all start to fall, fall to the earth
Squirrels gather nuts for all that they’re worth.

And now comes the cold time, Winter will call
We look up to the sky and hope snow will now fall
For we don’t need a season, again filled with rain
Defence against flooding being put up again.

But for now the sun’s out, let’s see where we go
There are lots of new green shoots starting to show
If they grow really well and we get a good harvest
We’ll know that Nature can’t be second guessed.

©JRW2014