Free Lynette Roberts: Collected Poems by Lynette Roberts

pealed
    Roared into flames when you proud widow
    Ran undaunted: the lead roof dripping red tears
                            curving to crash.
    Treasure was saved. Your loyalty broke all sight,
    Revived the creed of the Templars of old;
    Long lost. Others of the Inn escaped duty
                            in black hats.
    Furniture out, slates ripped off, yet persistently
    Hoovering the remaining carpet, living as we all do
    Blanketed each night, with torch, keys, emergency basket
                            close by your side.
    From paper window we gaze at the catacomb of books,
    You, unflinching, stern of spirit, ready to
    Gather charred sticks to fight no gas where gas was
                            everywhere escaping.

    Through thin library walls where ‘Valley’ still grows,
    From Pump Court to dry bank of rubble, titanic monsters
    Roll up from the Thames, to drown the ‘storm’ should it
                            dare come again.
    Still water silences death: fills night with curious light,
    Brings green peace and birds to top of Plane tree
    Fills Magnolia with grail thoughts: while you of King’s Bench
                            Walk, cherish those you most love.

The Seasons
    Spring which has its appeal in ghosts,
    Youth, resurrection, cleansing of the soil,
    And in dormant roots already considered,
    Stirs, with the sharpening of branches
    Challenges heart to do that which it cannot,
    Sustain overwork, overthought, overlove.
    It clears a path for hope: reinstates
    Faith, which we had too easily omitted
    With death, in the caustic months of the year.
    Summer proclaims joy, laughter before its
    Arrival: and deceives us into malice
    With its non appearance. It suggests
    A romance that we have not received
    Sunny balconies in the mind: the seldom
    Forgotten perfect island summer with its
    Warm haze on flesh, flower, and hide:
    The blossoming of their structure, fragrance
    And appeal, from their own root recorded. 
    Autumn comes strutting in like a cockerel,
    Red, blue, yellow and brown. It disintegrates
    Our purpose of singular thought; destroys
    Relationships: and cuts the sap of pride
    Ruthlessly. Those who survive retain one heart
    And voice. Yet autumn with contrawise motion
    Shields the creative mind with covering of leaves,
    Settles and matures dormant growth which will
    Reappear, under the hard skies of spring.
    Winter exceeds the year with impunity:
    Devours us of all greed: and freezes
    That residue. It upholds that which is not:
    Which is, the blaze of summer biting
    Into our nature for a future reappeal.
    Winter intones loss of all things:
    Is the next step to death which is loneliness:
    Comfort and warmth to be found around our own
    Heart and grate, within the steel ribs of this age.

Orarium
                         He whom my heart sings to
                         Is gone alone home;
                         And I am left,
                         Onela,
                         Alone in a wood of tears
                         In the woodlight
                         Alone.
                         Birds fly to no purpose
                         Birds cannot sing
                         When I am about,
                         For they dread the tale
                         Of old,
                         13 hundred years ago;
                         When man of God could
                         And would be saved by God,
                         Alone.
                         Over alluvial plains
                         Through brushwood