You Look So Good
You look so good dressed in white
Asleep in the dimness of the day
Waiting for the sun to return.
You look so good dressed in green
With the sun shining on your face
The warmth bringing you back to life.
You look so good dressed in yellow
As the heat of the day parches
And the air buzzes with electricity.
You look so good dressed in red and gold
With one mad festival before it ends
And quiet descends once more.
Opher 21.6.2019
I wrote this for the eternal cycle.
Disrobe
The trees nod their heads in the warm autumn breeze,
Put on their finest robes of red, orange and yellow
Then shimmy and dance in delight,
Working themselves into a frenzy of thrashing limbs.
Inflamed with lust,
They hurriedly disrobe to scatter their fine clothes all around.
Carried away in the heady intoxication
Of splendour,
Too keen to dare to stop,
They fling their bright costumes asunder, in the wind,
In an orgy of delight –
But never know when to stop.
In passion they discard
More than modesty would find discrete,
And stand denuded
In their skeletons – bereft.
Opher 18.9.2016
Disrobe
I wrote this on the way home from the Roy Harper gig in Edinburgh. It is mid-September and we could just detect the first signs of autumn. A few patches of leaves were showing a hint of yellow.
In a month the green will give way to an array of yellows, orange and red. We talked of visiting The East Coast of the States and Canada to witness the splendour. The winds will blow and then the leaves will fall leaving the intricate skeletal branches to stand against the sky and wait patiently for the warmth to return.
I felt the trees, dressed in their greatest finery would dance in that wind and then disrobe themselves in one last orgy of lust. But in their frenzy they would not only remove their clothes but their flesh too.
The Trees
The trees are preparing
To undress,
To shake their bones
In the wind
And pretend
To be dead.
Opher – 8.10.2020
As autumn comes the trees put on their best, most colourful dresses, for a last gay dance, then they let their colourful gowns drop to the ground.
Naked they stand against the chill wind.
Brittle and defiant. Just skeletons silhouetted against the horizon. Dead to the world.