Jim McDonald

London
I walk every day under your heavy skies
the grey lid that covers your people.
I walk your filthy streets and step past
...

I met my grandfather again last night –
strange, as he died in 1998.
World Cup Year.
I spent some time filling him in on what had gone on since.
...

for Jack Kerouac (1922-69)

Jack the America of your dreams is gone
Gone the brownstone tenements of the night
...

Spent an hour in the morning moving a wood-pile
from near the house where they need to lay pipes
to a copse I cleared two years ago
of a mountain of twenty year hawthorn and briar.
...

On a crisp Kent Autumn morning
My father throwing sticks, tennis balls, even his car keys
into a brown horsechestnut tree.
Down came showers of leaves and conkers.
...

Normandy
The path of your seasons is heavy on my heart
Wild winter gales
The early breath of spring-time air
...

Gardening yesterday I lifted a large log
and uncovered a teeming party of life.
Woodlice scuttled away
An earwig made its hurried passage to safety.
...

On a warm May morning I am invigilating a pointless Government exam
when a child asks eagerly,
“How much time left...? ”
A question better than any on his exam paper.
...

open sky washed clean by a night of rain
sharp breath of autumn covering everything
London almost pleasant in the 6 a.m. dawn light
...

At first the patter of a couple of raindrops
Increasing in frequency
Tacklings and cracklings
onto the glass roof above
...

Tuesday after Bank Holiday
Commuters stepping around
the stain from a dropped
ice
...

I meant to say how fantastic you looked when you came downstairs this evening.
I meant to say how much I love your knowledge of lower league football.
I meant to say how much I love our evenings of quiet computers & documentaries.
I meant to say how much I cherish the five minutes before the alarm clock rings at 6a.m.
...