Yorkshire Writers' Lunch

My beautiful beech tree, above us it towers, A constant shelter from those April showers. Tall, majestic, standing proud, A leafy protection beneath its shroud. Offering shade on a hot summer day, For family picnics and children at play. Warm sunny evenings drift into night, Calm and still beneath the moonlight.   Memories of Autumn I no longer treasure, Gathering leaves is a toil of a pleasure. Fluttering and falling without a sound, A vibrant carpet soon covers the ground. Crisp and crackling beneath our tree, Its branches stripped bare for all to see. Gnarled and twisted – reaching high, Towards a bleak and wintry sky.   A robin hops by, alone and bold, A solitary snowman stands frozen and cold. Fingers of frost stretch and crawl, Dancing snowflakes, how quickly they fall, Covering the earth now virgin white, Storm clouds gather as day turns to night. There’s no shelter now from the wind and rain, As the journey begins all o...

  She was cold. I knew a lodge full of smokeless coal and dry kiln logs.   Through blinding snow, we ran on towards smokeless coal and dry kiln logs.   Wrapped in folds, we came upon scents of smokeless coal and dry kiln logs.   Through the door and past hall clocks to the smokeless coal and dry kiln logs.   Brass hearth glowing halo hot with the smokeless coal and dry kiln logs.   She dropped her stole and I coughed full of smokeless coal and dry kiln logs.   We both bowed at this phoenix cot praising smokeless coal and dry kiln logs.   Embracing gold and taking stock of the smokeless coal and dry kiln logs.

I leave the house and bury my cold hands in my coat pockets immediately.  My breath steams in the frigid air, and the returning inhaled icy breath shocks my lungs, nearly making me cough.  I’m almost tempted back inside for another hot coffee, but I’m pulled back by the magnetism of the place. Walking gingerly on yesterday’s slush, now glistening and rock hard in the watery, early morning light, I walk down to the footpath that leads through the fields.  With each footstep I take, I slip a little on the ice, and it feels like hard going even though it’s a route I’ve taken hundreds of times, a path burned into the neural pathway in my brain. The path up through the field crunches under my feet - frozen ice and grasses alike giving way at each step.  How silent it is! - no traffic sounds to break the stillness of early morning, not even a hardy dog walker, with their charge wrapped up against the cold. This liminal space is mine for a little while longer. I reach the r...

  January is my cat, gentle as snow just falling,      laying soft against my cheek. January is my cat, needle sharp claws      scratching, ripping my skin. January is mutable, skittery, burning ice,      a coal black, silvered wonderland. January sparkles in sunshine, freezing the night,      clothing the world with wintry, warm snow.       Photo by Sandra Kapella on Unsplash    

Christmas Christmas time should be such a pleasure, With precious memories for us to treasure. So why do we always shop, shop, shop, Spend, spend, spend, till we’re fit to drop. And as it draws near, that day in December, The true meaning of Christmas we must remember. Loved ones who have left us, but not forever, Still in our thoughts as we gather together. Think of others sitting alone, Those on the street without a home. Spare a thought for their pitiful plight, As we eat and drink into the night. It’s not about money, but giving and sharing, Christmas time is for loving and caring. So as we rejoice in endless chatter, Remember the things that really matter. A Special Christmas Frosty fingers on my window pane Children sledging down an icy lane A lonesome robin hopping by Snowflakes fluttering from a darkening sky A solitary snowman stands alone As carol singers wend their way home to hot mince pies and festive sherry Over indulge - it’s a...

Spring. Days of gentle optimism unfurled and grew steadily longer.  Bright lime shoots pushed from the soil and nest builders, eager and bold, darted into hidden places, their beaks full of wriggling food.  The restless wren flew to her new orb of woven grasses, twigs and moss through a tiny door facing away from the chill wind that shook the dry clematis tangled over the arch. In May, bees rushed to the pendulous branches of the apple tree and swooped to trampoline inside the white blossom.  Fat, orange rosebuds swelled in the sun and pots squatted under the open kitchen window, full of crimson blooms like harlots’ petulant mouths. Propped flower spires reached into strangely quiet skies and netted fruit plumped and blushed as the earth grew warm.   Twelve weeks of waiting and watching as the sun climbed higher and the numbers started to fall.             We came up for air for a few rushed, summer weeks of partial respite b...