Familiar theme. Unfamiliar ending.

*****

Sunday afternoon farm sounds

mostly sleepy silence
a suite of breezes
  of differing thicknesses
cartwheeling leaves
bone-crunching lawn dogs
young pup’s yips
  unsure what’s going on
mad gabbing of parrots
lonely cry of a duck
  searching for the lost flock
solitary desolation
  of the only crow around

the soporific drone of man
whether high sky, dirt disturbing
or distant roadway rumbling
a forgotten radio
  playing to a shed of ghosts
the irritating digital pings
  as new words arrive
  at my mother’s phone

& my beautiful grandmother
humming made up melodies
& starting sentences
memory won’t let her finish

BONUS POEM: April 14, 2018

Bit of theme developing. Oh well, it’s part of the reason behind the trip …
NOTE: minor 2019 edits to improve flow.

*****

looking for Ambrose in the Torringtons

start in lush Merton sunshine
where we are confident one is sown
yet six of us, crisscrossing, find nothing
except freshly cut grass, lichen
& boredom blooming like mushrooms
— so five leave as one goes on
to the Torringtons three: Little —
unclear if any were ever planted here
regular — where a football pitch garden
implies looking for needles that might
not even be in this granite haystack
for not a single 18th century date’s
visible beneath time’s smoothings
whereas ironically Great — no longer
seems to exist. realise I need simply to enjoy
the moss path beneath my feet
settling sunbeams on my skin
& be reassured that if Ambrose et al
even still care, I have tried.
moments later I pass a bus full of silly
young people preparing for a wedding
which seems eminently appropriate —
reassures me I made the right choice.