A Glorious Walk on the River Bank

The sky a hue of pale turquoise,
A Festival of Britain shade of blue,
And from the flood plain, full in view,
The Wellingtonia, or Giant Sequoia
Towers above the Ouse Bridge, its poise
And elegance and majesty renew
My sense of pride in ownership,
As if a human being can own a tree,
And yet I do!

And I feel like shouting;
Membership
Of the Wellingtonia owners club,
Being limited to a few.

The Wellingtonia's height
Is echoed in the clocktower,
Whose spire, Victorian Gothic
Pierces wispy bits of cloud,
Its face and hands display the hour
In shining gilt;
Its chime sufficiently loud
To carry far across the river.
And of course it is specific,
Yet I never bother to count it,
The chiming itself sufficient clue,
Because time is unimportant,
All that matters in such minutes
Is the beauty of the day.

And however I might try I can't surmount it;
But that never stops me trying to;
Though no description does it justice,
No words portray
The colour and the texture of the water,
Ruched and puckered so you notice:
The tiny shadows chopping up the surface
In a slightly darker shade of purple-grey,
Or the whiteness of the turbines
As they whirl in windy synchrony,
Strung out across the fields in ragged lines,
Before the massive towers of Drax
Producing candy floss,
Which forms a colony
Of clouds along the way.

The seagulls circle over by the flood ponds
Filled by the tide, just ebbing now,
Making little bits of titanium whiteness,
As if chosen to fulfill the purpose
Of counterbalancing the brilliance of the light,
And a crowd of ragged rooks in black rotation,
Create a further arty, scenic device.

And as I think of how man returns to dust,
The cold wind breathes a life affirming gust.