Four days from the longest day
and the perigean moon
This June evening spreads itself warmly
across a reach of rippling Thames.
The Windsor swans are out
preening on the river’s edge,
scattering feathers like snow
in the shadowless twilight.
Damsel flies yo-yo in the air;
an aircraft whines overhead ’
in its wake a line of landing lights
stretches back to the western sky.
The setting sun sinks into gilded cloud,
turning the sky into a rose garden,
and spilling the last of its gold on the water
like a drunken Midas.