SUNSET OVER PARKHURST FOREST

Posted by Admin on 25 May 2006, 12:00 am

A collar-up and scarf-to-chin day:
chill, tenebrous with threat of snow.
The rural scene observed informs
my pen with nothing new.
The trees, a tractor’s martial red,
and ferrous implements that wear
their patina of rust for ever:
the rustling russet underfoot
that hides the bluebell’s provenance
and primrose roots asleep till Spring –
my eye records, my psyche spurns
all commonplace phenomena.
Then, localised upon the heights,
where Rowridge lifts its mast
above our darksome forest,
the West’ring Sun escapes
through louring cloud, and floods
in fan-shaped rays the slopes below.
Transformed, translucent now, the downs
belie their mass, and insubstantial stand
as hyalescent hills, aglow with light,
a splendent world of palest gold.
Inspired here, a Monet might equate
those tones within the compass of his art;
but I, a scribbler, see, absorb, and feel,
yet know my own interpretation
inutile and foredoomed to failure.