spring poetry

This week I seem to have missed both the first day of spring and World Poetry Day. I suppose that is as good an excuse as any to post a poem started back in February. It was inspired by a walk in what is said to be a fragment of the old Forest of Arden, a few miles up the road from the scene in the picture.

The poem still isn’t where I want it to be, but I think at least some of it is salvageable.

Workshop-in-Arden

Today it feels like spring. We widdershin
the woods: Alice in petunia-bright pink boots,
me in city heels; the others, winter-shod; all
seeking Fibonacci’s finger prints, alert for poems
on trees and worlds in grains of sand. False-footed,
snapping cracking twigs, we’re tripped by roots
that knee through mud and last year’s mulchy leaves.
There’s clumps of scribbled green that scream
of daffodils to come while apple-pip black buds
swell with silver fur. Despite the boasts,
there’s no beasts here: no fox or badger, rabbit,
mouse or shrew; the branches are birdless.
Pale as primroses, above our heads, catkins
worm down from the sky.