Seasons

The procession of our seasons
carries us forward afresh, and
transfigures the dark and the grief.

The unfurling leaves of our spring
encode our own sure transience
in the cycle of creation.

The confidence of summer’s growth
allows a myth of permanence,
fuelling the cycles of our love.

Burnished, we prepare to transmute
this our flourishing, to free us
for the cycle of earth’s renewing.

For the seeming deaths in winter
are truly the transfigured lives -
resilient, transcendent, and ineffable

© Anthony Pinching

Coining It

A late March, along the pier
they group, too thin for weather,
all mod cons in gangs of old,
rubbing coppers the wrong way,
as static gambling drags their
carefree souls to sea level.
It slots you in, greases your palm
with spurious dollars,
a brief windfall energised by salt air
and your head screens guilt trailers.
You dig deep, finding the angry money,
you flick it dangerously with a backward spin.
The penny drops,
the penny pushes
and grips your small dreams tightly,
beside a teenage thump.

Jerry Pike