Plum Garden of Kamata. (Rejected Version).

Old labourers deep in prayer.

Chores over until the morrow.

Broken hands with stunted fingures

Clasped together desperately.

Pollarded fruit trees reaching high,

Branches cut back with precision

To stimulate new growth and blossom,

The sky the colour of ripening cherries.

Two girls dressed in warm kimonos

Stand beside a turquoise lake.

They stand quite still, listening to silence

Ebb and flow through the stillness.

The chill air of an April evening

Tainted with a scent of frost

Has filled thatched homes with yellow light.

Candles burn behind closed windows.

As secret as the quiet interiors

Of these houses by the lake,

The labourers pray beyond the limits

Of this beauty their work has made.

The artist, printing on fine paper

The delicate textures of this scene,

Thinks only of the plum tree blossoms

As he deftly grades the inks.

He also is outside the limits

Of this scene he replicates.

The two girls standing by the lake

Break the silence with a laugh.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.

May 2nd. 2021.

Friday Night Blessings.

The flowers in my garden are watered by beer.

Cans and bottles thrown over the garden wall

By revellers on Friday nights.

They shout and fight, but rarely for more than

                                                              an hour.

I thank you good neighbours for the blessings

You have bestowed.

Forget-Me-Nots flourish where the tipple has fallen

In spits and splashes, often in the early light,

And my roses are not offended by Special Brew,

Although the cans attract both snails and slugs.

Unexpected pleasures are often the most loved,

And your noisy addictions have brought a scenario

                                                                   of beauty

I could not have planned myself.

Wild flowers root deep where your litter has fallen,

And soon the bees and butterflies appear,

But I still do not appreciate clearing your mess.

Your beer is welcome, but as to your cans and bottles,

Please take them home before the moon has set.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter,

April 30th. 2021.

A Flower Meditation.(Revised).

The silence of this flower

Is its true beauty.

Just being in her presence

Is a perfect meditation.

I look and look and look

At the fragile, sun filled cup.

Hard graft did not create this,

Just a simple natural process.

No Chinese porcelain vase

Could ever be so flawless.

In her presence thoughts grow quiet,

Cease to be a wild distraction.

This tulip, filled with sunlight.

So calm and still, yet in transition.

I sit and look and listen,

At one with all I see.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 

April 27th. 2021.

Written on my birthday.

The Last Journey.

 Like a ghost walking

He stepped carefully

Into the car that would speed him home

As though it were a boat rocking

Against the storm lashed quay.

For a moment he mistook the chauffeur

For the Ferryman

And turned away startled, but not afraid.

He looked back at the crowd of smiling nurses

Gathered on the steps to wish him well

And gave a nervous wave.

His quirky smile was delicately nuanced

To hide his grief at parting

From so many friendships made in three short weeks.

His life had been a continuum of partings,

But this time the hurt was visceral.

Somehow he knew this was the final journey,

That his heart was only strong enough for this

And would soon give way

And simply cease to beat.

Better to die at home in his old warm bed

Than cut off from his wife and family.

But the icy wind this wintry April morning

Made him cling to dreams he knew were ephemeral.

He dreamed of a different journey, in a fine tall ship,

To the archipelago where he was born.

There he could rest and watch the dolphins leap

The quiet waves lifting slow towards the shore.

And there Charon`s barge, crowded with lonely strangers,

Was just another small boat out to sea.

He nodded to the chauffeur awkwardly,

And without more ado was driven away.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.

April 17th. - 18th. - 20th. 2021.

Celandines at Easter. (Completed).

 A carpet of Celandines.

Yellow snow sprinkling the green.

Even I am made happy by this.

After the drabness of winter

A sudden rush of colour.

My eyes hurt in the sun.

Celandines are the tear drops of Angels

Spilled on the ground on Good Friday.

This morning a ghost from last summer,

The frail dried husk of a flower,

Was blown into my porch.

I snatched it up from the concrete,

This emblem of hopes and anxieties

Recollected, but no longer real.

I spent much of last year in the garden,

Astonished by the glamour of blossoms,

Wild roses as large as my hand.

Yet these delicate miniature Celandines,

No bigger than April snow flakes,

Dazzle my eyes this morning.

Spring flowers have the frailness of children,

We love them but can easily hurt them

In a moment of thoughtlessness.

But the Hydrangea, from which this husk fell,

Is a brute of a midsummer plant

That spreads over the path to my door.

Every June it spreads out of control,

But the blooms are just wonderful.

Celandines are small and ephemeral.

Mid April they melt in the sun.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 

March 28th. - 29th. - April 5th. - 12th. - 14th. 2021.

Blackthorn Snow.

                       Blackthorn Snow.

Blackthorn snow, sudden, but not inconsequential. 

Unexpected storms break the rhythm of the year,

Especially in March.

I walk across the white hills searching for a trace

Of your introspective smile

                                             - Of your bell like voice

 In the wind shaken trees - in cloud shadows 

                                                        skidding over

The moist springtime snow.

My footsteps are the only ones that mark this path.

All around me I see blankness.

It was at Easter I first met you.

Easter nineteen sixty four.

You walked into the cafe and offered me an apple

From your knitted bag,

                                     (Your bag of tricks I named it).

You were only fourteen, but seemed five years older.

I was barely twenty one, naive and full of talk.

We spent hours discussing Braque and Dostoevsky,

The existential dramas of Sarte.

That day was nearly sixty years ago now,

In a very different city, a different century, a different

                                                             millennium.

A time far more honest than today. Far more intellectual.

(Perhaps I am growing old, but hope now seems grotesque,

                            a clown with rotted teeth and matted hair.

We then had Kennedy, that tragic morning star).

Our friendship lasted almost forty six years,

But then you crumbled beneath the surgeons knife,

A blazing light too easily extinguished, too quickly

                                                            turned to ash.

I walk across the white hills calling out your name.

There will not now be an answer.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 

March 25th. - 26th. - 27th. - 28th. 2021.

For Zoe Harris, gone ten years already

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Unexpected Gift. (New Poem).

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Unexpected Gift. (New Poem).: Until then we had lodged in small bedsits, Loners who steered clear of strangers; Who hated fairgrounds and parties; Dance halls and pu...