Hugh Mitchell Poems

No fish-merchant at the street's end now
'Palamut, palamut' no more
even the simit-seller walks on silent feet
the snow descends in feathered lumps
...

Good morning Mr Magpie
alone again, like me
I greet you then I bless myself
and hope that I shall see
...

This time I nearly didn't know you, Gaia,
elegant dancer; slow smiler
the children, of course, they knew you from the start,
knew you and loved you -
...

The germ of an idea came to me
Watching a botanist on my TV
He said a species could be recognized
as great by how much world it colonized
...

Down at the bottom of the world
amongst the snow and sleet
stands a lonely Emperor penguin
with an egg upon his feet.
...

A pair of herons flying from a ditch
wheeled low and elegant over the road
one flew too low - a sudden car
ended her gracious flight
...

I'm wet and I'm wiggly
I'm slimy and squiggly
I live in the weeds
I swim through the reeds
...

The desert is a strange old place
Just rocks and sand and sky
and big black birds with hooky beaks
that hover way up high
...

Dripping in rain at the year's end
an elegant old town - too large for those who've settled here
they move in dreams over the scrubby grass
pushing through memories along the square.
...

Last night I had a dream of Ireland's Eye
wind-ruffled island of my childhood hour
- waves, restless seaweed, cliffs and gull-filled sky
the ruined church, the ever-watchful tower.
...