Invitation to gardens in winter

Invitation to gardens in winter

 

Pines from Mexico, with needles soft as feathers,

their cones as big as fat bananas all over the ground.

Scarlet cotoneaster berries, bright as sunshine,

hang above frosty shadowed corners.

There are plane trees, London planes as big as a city,

branches full of fruit against a startled blue sky.

Beside them we will watch the river rolling by.

We will sit on a bench in the slow morning sun

to share fresh apples and sandwiches of cheese and salad,

while we are watched by a pair of hopeful geese.

And you will see more trees than you can ever count.

Here are the tallest eucalyptus,

covered in the longest strips of subtle coloured bark

around twisted trunks, from lightest yellow to greenest dark.

I will tell you about the perfumes of heady wintersweet,

fragrant daphne, and all the honeyed scents of this season.

We’ll find oak, elm, cedar, Zelkova,

and the oldest oriental plane on the planet.

You can talk to me of this world of trees,

else how will I know their names and places,

whether they grow in valleys or wide open spaces.

And we’ll walk by grasses, tall in golden slanting sun,

where long shadows of bamboo stand out clear

against the wide spread of green lawns;

and dogwood stems stand proud in crowns of red.

Geese will shout their calls over the still frozen mere

and we’ll watch coots totter on ice, unsure of their ground, 

while we wonder at all the treasures that we have found.

As afternoon draws down its shades and the bitter cold lingers

we’ll take a turn in the Palm House to thaw our frozen fingers,

where we’ll drown in warm scents of tropical rainforest.

At the end we’ll aim for the café where temptation waited all day.

You know, you simply have to come to the gardens –

not just for all the trees, the grasses and the lake,

but without you, who else will I have to share the cake?

 

Birthday poem

Woman in a red chair, Pablo Picasso

Here's a bit of a Birthday Poem.

Body

This body’s not finished yet.

It has scars, wrinkles and veins,

and that’s only on the surface,

even worse troubles lurk underneath –

its brain forgets things,

all those names disappear;

its lungs get short of air,

the blood flows sluggish,

there’s cholesterol gathering,

joints ache and stick,

knees pop and creak,

but it ain’t finished yet.

This body’s got work to do.

There are more hills to climb,

lakes to swim, bridges to cross,

woodland paths to walk;

Two Nudes, Pablo Picasso

there is sea air to breathe in deep.

Stories to be read, words to write,

more friends to laugh with,

and many more people to hug,

animals to stroke, kids to cuddle,

more peaches to suck, berries to savour,

cake to be cut.

None of it is finished yet.

This body’s got work to do.

There are fires to stare into,

races to run, gates to jump, trees to climb,

fences to cross, fields to wander in,

swings to swing on,

more journeys to make,

there's more music to bring joy to the heart.

And there are hands to hold,

bodies to caress,

lovers to kiss,

secret places to be explored,

so much more love to be made.

 

This poem was written to the Week 3 prompt in this great little book. Week 3 - Exposing Yourself - happens to coincide with my birthday. I am revisiting the 'Write a Poem a Week' prompts this year. Writing some new material and revisiting work started when 52 was run as an online project in 2014 by Jo Bell. 52 is on Twitter: https://twitter.com/52poetry
and the book is available here:

 

http://ninearchespress.com/poetry-collections/52writeapoemaweekstartnowkeepgoing.html

Midnight walk

It has rained every day here in this corner of west Wales since October 31st. We have got used to floods on the roads as the water continually runs off the land onto lanes where  gulleys overflow and drains are blocked by debris. Last weekend we decided to go on foot to a friend's place, which is less than a mile away through the woods, much further via flooded roads in the car. It was still raining, but hey, there was a party at the end of the journey.

(We only had to walk back afterwards!)

Midnight walk

Your nose runs, you sniff,

wipe it on the back of your soaked glove,

this doesn’t help,

it makes your nose more wet,

but at least there is no one to see

deep in the night forest where

tree trunks loom in the torch beam

and brown leaves shine on the ground

as you slip, slither and slide

down the steep valley side,

hang onto branches for balance so

squeezed moss fills your hands with rain.

Step through roaring streams,

stumble up the other side,

search out the path in torchlight,

skid down again on slipping mud,

the only sounds the thunder of bursting becks,

the constant drip of rain, and

your nose sniffing to no effect.

The world is drowning.

War widow

Dorothy Charlotte Biggs, 3.12.1915 to 29.1.1985

On this day, when we are at war again, I am particularly remembering my mother on her centenary.

Dorothy Charlotte Biggs

December 3^rd 1915 – January 29th, 1985

She was a lone parent to two girls for several years after her first husband was killed in action in the Dambuster raids in 1943. She was widowed twice in her life - her second husband, my dad, died in 1978.

She wasn’t the only woman of her generation – or of any other age – to experience what war can do to families. There are many still becoming widows today. And as we go to war again, this poem is for my mum and for all the war widows everywhere, then and now.

This poem is set in London in World War II.

War widow

The telegram is on the table,

their Daddy’s dead.
 
Their Daddy’s dead,
a hero, but not here, never here, now.

The bombs are falling on the street,

the earth shifts, the world crumbles,
while the silence in her soul – cracks –

and explodes into a thousand unshed tears.

 

Devastation is all around,

but her house stands firm.

Her two lovely daughters are under the stairs,

clinging together.

She stands, quiet and still in the dark kitchen,

the lump in her throat suffocates,

but it keeps the feelings down.

Life is calm and steady for her girls,

while only deadness fills her empty broken heart

and a cold numb stone fills her stomach –

all her days and all her nights.

And when both her loves were gone,

she stood firm in the ruins of her world,

and never let her twice-broken heart bleed into our lives.