Weather forecast today for Wivenhoe says rain this morning and “Yellow weather warning: wind.” Much the same for the Lake District; imagine a wild wind howling the length of the old corpse road between Ambleside and Grasmere. Our poet Wendy Webb is smiling at Spring sunbeams. It is Day 499 of the daily new poems.
Storms dance sunbeams in Spring
I’m smiling like a mother, with daffodils,
the steam train chuntering along the track
and my boy grinning, with Barney the Dinosaur.
I’m smiling at Earlham, where seasonal blooming
calms my Masada-brave heart in March.
I’m smiling, yes, smiling, no, smiling, I will smile, will …
like Icarus, laughing in too-close shine,
I will laugh with my father, ignoring that pitch of voice
breaking, breaking, falling like sunbeams.
I will wander lonely as a storm cloud in the Lakes,
avoiding other walkers along the Coffin Route
to Rydal Mount, where my doppelganger mourns
I’m smiling at 5am, rabbits grazing around holiday village
in the dark, ducks sleeping one-legged beside a lake
as Pluto storms offshore, Persephone’s blooming release:
In October, when my own matriarch is long-buried
without her voice, I will remember golden sunshine
and beaming daffodils of my big boy’s smile
at Ullswater, baby-fresh dancing a cruiser to
Glenridding’s devastation and restoration
Lunching in sunshine, sandwich with pint.
I’m smiling like a mother, with daffodils.
Wendy Webb