Sleight of Hand

Through ancient woodland

With its call of time past

Echoing the woodpecker.

It’s almost sleight of hand

This profusion of spring

And now the pasture

Carpeted with buttercups too. 

Along this scarce trodden path

Wild orchids,

Sentinels of this moment.

 Folded into the forms of land

Time smoothed yet never stilled,

The last of the bluebells

Glow soft in the shadows.

 Pin pricks of light

A firmament distilled

This shower of space dust

Falling here and now
This moment this place.

Slip now any tenuous grip 

Let go the trembling reeds

Step from the mud of the shallows,

Into the light gathering form,

So to dream on and on.