ENGLAND, UK

robert.berry@pop3free.com

The Father

Like hares
Children chase pigeons
Across the poppy fields
Under my windows,

Loud-tongued in the sunlight.

High in my study
Sly as a Mage,
I stir potions of words

Laughing like a crow
At the beauty of creation.

For these lines are magic children.
They play on the page.

If they tear their knees
And run bawling to their master

I shall spin them round my shoulders
And take off across the fields
Braying like a mule,
Their Father.

Cathedral City

Rooks. Rook black skies,
These places huge with rain,
Immense with legend.

As the Cathedral examines her flat lands for blasphemy

On Brayford Pool the swans are
Dane longships

And the towpath of the Roman canal
Bustles with centurions clad against the cold.

Here in this city the wind nurses a hard grievance,

Her thin voice wailing over red roofs,
Blasting the stark wooded skyline
Forever.

The Journey

Struggling up Steep Hill,
Wind lacerates our skins.
Ashen-faced, we shall

Walk round the Cathedral,
Exalted, Magnificent.

If you look up
There's the illusion of movement,

As cloud hurtles over buttresses,
Over stone demons whose mouths
Drool blasphemously.

Then walk inside, to where the silence of the Chantry
Is complete.

Under its stones
Rests an esteemed bishop.

But death is irreverent. Feet have worn at his tablet,
Leaving only a blur date and indistinct Latin.

© All Copyright, Dr. Robert James Berry.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.