I see...

Written whilst looking outside my office window, Studholme Street, Morrinsville, New Zealand.

* 

The road outside my window

now teems with every form of life …

above, all sight of feathered flight is lost

to those set on an intercontinental course …

 *

Close by I see the past in an old fence post,

last remnant of the farmhouse here that was,

beneath my feet the earth, rich and dark

retains whatever drama was played out here

a hundred or more years before …

 *

Next door, pupils arrive from school eager

for another supplementary education session …

seated at keyboard, their fingers,

brain directed, computing information

adding an extra dimension to their day’s learning.

 *

What formula will they perhaps discover …

that twenty years on will set another kind of course?

No matter; they have youth’s potential and motivation

to adventure with a growing, more cosmopolitan

worldwide barrier breaking population …

on the internet I see …

*

Our human senses interface,

surface skimming almost instinctively …

sometimes, provoked by mood or other stimuli

more deeply comprehending a new insight.

 *

Dennis Crompton © 1999

(first published www.denniscrompton.wordpress.com 2013)

With these eyes I have seen

I have seen with these eyes

things to make me wonder, weep or cry;

been lifted up and cast down too

by the kaleidoscopic gamut

of happenings around.

*

Seen troops of chattering children

free from classrooms’ confining walls,

learning as they strolled hand in hand

along widening enlightening roads.

*

Frail elderlies too, sedate, composed

on their daily walk to town…when,

a sudden swirl of wheeling birds

brings them joy in the sunny air.

*

From trailer hitched to back of truck

stare two soft eyes, lovely and brown

a patient cow from out of town…

now comes a fat and friendly Labrador,

his coat a glossy black

lightly trots his sniffing round

pink tongue peeps from smiling mouth.

*

Be careful now!…he’s on the road,

inspecting something lying there;

hedgehog squashed, exposed, obscene

too late on snail patrol he’d seen

oncoming vehicle lights surprised

and just as suddenly, he died.

*

Here comes a silent, sad-faced gentleman

hurting deeply at employment lost;

services no longer required; sorry,

must lay you off, says his younger efficient boss.

*

There is beauty, wonder, sadness, love…

yes, all these things for me are free.

I can select, absorb, ignore or shut out,

the choice is mine, you see…

from my store of mind-pictures

sometimes deep emotions stir,

make me one with all mankind…

silent at night or away on my own

the call me from the library of my mind.

*

Then warmed or weeping, bless the thought:

‘These things I’ve seen I can share with you’.

*

Dennis Crompton © 1995

(first published www.denniscrompton.wordpress.com 2013)