
A Southern View

I've been foraging for borage,
Buttercups and a certain
Salving parsley, floral
Wreaths and silence,
Foxgloves floating in their thousands,
Beyond
My soul-tsunami.
Above love's undergrowth
Billow seeds of lion's teeth,
Also known by cankerwort,
Irish daisy,
Witches' gowan, take
Your pick dependent
On your parlance,
Slowly drifting by
Like the quietly
Glowing intentions
And desires of
Subtle snowflakes.
No greater miracle we need
Than Nature -
Germination, regeneration,
We packed away our overcoats
And umbrellas and crumbs
Of conversations to stand
With crowds in verges,
In suburban lanes where
Carnival celebrations
Passed us by, a smile,
A photograph, a wave.
For this self-renewal,
I saw that same procession
With elephants and acrobats
And other-worldly fruits,
A girl with second sight,
A vial of dust did sprout legumes,
A great-great-grandmother
From the coast who met
Her son exhumed; flags
And banners and drums;
And there, within
This entourage's
Centrifuge,
A quite magnificent
Lioness, born from leaves
Through penury,
Through belief,
Through ritual and rosaries
And into then beatitude,
Never better expressed than
In some jagged leaves
Of a weed, upon
A kerbside edge,
Recipient of our wonder,
Thereafter born anew.
For all bifurcating branches
Sublime in their simplicity,
A dog has very little need
Indeed, yet with joyous barks
No less retrieves
Inherent interventions
Between what we deemed
Essential, or inbetween,
Or instead invented;
This contrast is at times
A subtle one,
Like sunlight through
Doppelganger-dappled leaves,
Ever since antiquities
In these dark-shaded parks
Of our entwining souls;
Yet if not for that twisted,
Rotten tooth of birch
In boggy undergrowth,
There would be no us,
Nor any running dog at all.
A deluge in May,
Kerbside surface spray,
Torrents overwhelm
Dank country lanes.
Driving in low gears,
Waterfall chicanes,
Wrong latter ways,
Reminds me of childhood
And leaping over streams
Beneath a tarn-light bay,
Beside a dead man’s seam
In long-lost dreams
And longer lesser days.
Over there, a castle, see,
Its ghosts roam free
Through basements, attics
And these oak-pannellings
Overlooking a sodden
Village green;
Stumps received,
And sandwiches filled with
Cucumber and cheese;
The church hall leak,
Well, we can fix,
While men in linen-whites
Played winning willow innings,
Then ominous rains returned,
And a beckoning for tea.
731.
Are there miracles
Higher-made than walking through
A falling blossom?
732.
Beautiful blossom,
A soft and welcome flurry;
Less so, still, than you.