October 2026

poetry

First Sign of Spring

by James Bruce May


It was a shock to see

a high-vis man

in the derelict plot next door

He was


out of scale in that wild place 


We’d come to love this slither

of quiet green. It’d soon

become a meadow of our own

a private strip of nature

hidden away

in a busy inner-city suburb


Of its seasonal secrets

squirrels on show

     tall buttercups

  real red poppies

its birds (wagtails crows

pigeons wood pigeons

a song thrush robins

as many tits and you can tally)


it was for the family

of foxes we feared most


the man checked

plans clipped to his clipboard

kicked dew from the raised arch

of his steel toecap boot

pondered where to put the wood-chipper

as litter caught in branches above

lifted in the light breeze


james-bruce-may
James Bruce May

James Bruce May studied at the Brighton Institute of Modern Music and read Creative Writing at Greenwich University and Goldsmiths College in London where he lives. His work appears online in Clear Poetry, Twisted Vine Literary Arts Journal, Gravel Magazine, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Stockholm Review of Literature, Spontaneity and in other journals. http://www.jamesbrucemay.com/

https://twitter.com/james_bruce_may


More work by James Bruce May

1968 - 2026

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