The Webbed Wanderer

 The Webbed Wanderer

A whisper in the muddy reeds,

Where quiet, cool, and shade succeeds,

The smallest of our water-kin,

With spotted throat and amber skin.

When spring breathes warm across the shire,

The male puts on his best attire:

Dark-webbed hind feet, a thread-like tail,

A crest that shimmers, sleek and pale.

He swims in arcs of emerald light,

A master of the pond by night,

Then leaves the shallows, damp and shy,

Beneath the Gloucestershire sky.

Deep in the woodpile's shadowed maze,

He slumbers out the summer days,

A tiny jewel, moss-bejew’d

The hidden, wild and palmate newt.

Art’ I’gence 2026

The Enkindled Spring

This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green, 

Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled bushes, 

Thorn-blossom lifting in wreaths of smoke between 

Where the wood fumes up and the watery, flickering rushes.

I am amazed at this spring, this conflagration 

Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze 

Of growing, and sparks that puff in wild gyration,


Faces of people streaming across my gaze.

And I, what fountain of fire am I among 

This leaping combustion of spring? My spirit is tossed 

About like a shadow buffeted in the throng


Of flames, a shadow that's gone astray, and is lost.

DH Lawrence 1916

Now that’s what Spring is all about

When the clouds melt under the sun’s command,

A beam of light wakes the soldiers on land;

It winds the wings,

Turns the leaves,

Sprouts a nettle

Who conquer with ease.

Wakes the children.

Lulls the cats,

Forgetting about the cold winter past.

Energy sparks,

People go out,

Now that’s what spring is all about!

Arti Krawiec 2026