Two Poems, (1) Barn Owls. (2) On the Cusp of Spring and Winter.

                     1.

             Barn Owls.

The moment you left the house
I became like a stick thrown into the wind
With no place to fall.

A dead leaf dropped on the wet ground
Scuffed at by laughing children
Chasing after a ball.

A plastic cup dropped in the gutter
Slowly dismembered into shreds
Under which two waterlogged beetles
Skid and crawl.

But what of you, do we see you at all
Rushing back to your dying brother
Now collapsed in his freezing caravan
Like a foal curled up in a stall?

Do we see you crying at midnight
As he lies coughing under his window?
Now counting the pulse of his breath
While outside the Barn Owls call?

No, we are too busy scratching at sores,
At our jealousy and other trite sorrows
As we stare bleakly into the mirror.
We do not notice your kindness at all.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
April 4th. 2013. . 

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                        2. 

On the Cusp of Spring and Winter. 

The dark forest cracks open its bare bones
To reveal the fledgling leaves.
The softened leaf mould breaks apart, bursts
And roughly heaves with fevered disruptions
Splitting open the secret heart of the forest.
Awakened saplings strive to muscle upwards
To greet a distant rumour of the sun.

The river stretches out a thickened fist,
A bruised fist towards the distant ocean.
Ice crashes down the mountainside in a torrent of rainbows
Dissolving ancient escarpments, water courses, unstable cliffs,
Mixed up with the wreck of woodlands, dead bracken, liquid
soil, the remnants of animals. Flesh wood and leaf mould
Thrown down to replenish the earth.

And we, the grieving citizens of the Earth,
Fierce children tamed by artificial means
Learned in the neon glamour of the streets,
The slick life of the city, the forum of plastic
dreams. We, the inheritors, cut off from ancient
hearths, our rural forbears, the comforts of
community. We, the suckling babes of Mother
Earth, Exiled in concrete citadels of light,
Gleaming charnel houses cloaked in steel and
glass / That vandalize the sky, block out the stars.
We too await the onslaught of the Spring
To galvanize with hope our lonely lives.

  Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 

Sketched January 30th. 1991, Kehl am Rhein. - 
Revised London December 5th. 2003. - April 4th.- 5th. 2013.