plants – Page 8 – don't confuse the narrator

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.
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multitasking

I seem to have as many things on my “to do” list as the neighbour’s azalea has flowers at the moment. Sadly, none of my projects are likely to be so attractive when completed.

work in progress

Although I understand that the UK weather was dreadful over the holidays, I’m not sure that it was really cold; certainly there are already signs of spring about. Of course we’re bound to get some real winter weather later, so I hope Nature has the good sense to be patient.

Chrysalis

Tight as apple pips,
 buds spiral around
a moss-supple stalk
 anticipating spring
when they will split  
and shake free
 tissue wings.

That’s a draft, and questions remain:
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idiomatic

I’m not sure if this counts as a hairy situation:

bee and clematis tangutica seed head (old man's beard)

It’s clearly not the cat’s whiskers. But it might be the bee’s knees.

armies of the dead

Some years ago I was in the south of France at this time of year. Everywhere we went there were fields of dead sunflowers lined up like troops deployed to watch the roads.

Instead of the open faces and bright golden helms and plumes of summer knights, these figures had heavy dark heads set precariously on bony stalks that were slowly bleaching to ivory as the year began to fade.

Travelling by car, we sped past far too fast for me to do more than note the overall effect.

Today, though, the stark silhouettes looking over my garden fence have reminded me of these skeletal armies. I can only imagine what it must be like to walk past field after field of them, particularly when the wind is high and their mis-shapen yellowing limbs twitch and shiver and they whisper to each other in a secret language.