The photograph was taken last Tuesday 10 April with our friends in their wood in Kent.
The poem was written on a visit to the wood in 2000. Hope you like them both.
Moment in the Wood
I first heard the wind
blowing far off trees.
A hushed restlessness
that could have been rain.
Then granite grained
light dissolving fast,
sun cloaked.
The wind, louder now,
metallic sounding.
Could have been
farm machinery.
Suddenly tree tops
convulsed wildly,
branches flung helpless
crisp leaves hissing
like radio static.
Now here upon us
flapping tarpaulin
smoke scattering
all over the camp,
bushes and branches
bent to knotted brambles
and the heat swallowed
up by sudden chill.
Then the wind running
off to somewhere else
leaves, everything, still.
Wind came, stopped our work,
like unwanted thoughts,
disturbed our peace,
like a door slammed
against the summer.
© David Loffman
