The dawn is smiling on the dew that covers
The tearful roses; lo, the little lovers
That kiss the buds, and all the flutterings
In jasmine bloom, and privet, of white wings,
That go and come, and fly, and peep and hide,
With muffled music, murmured far and wide.
Ah, the Spring time, when we think of all the lays
That dreamy lovers send to dreamy mays,
Of the fond hearts within a billet bound,
Of all the soft silk paper that pens wound,
The messages of love that mortals write
Filled with intoxication of delight,
Written in April and before the May time
Shredded and flown, playthings for the wind's playtime,
We dream that all white butterflies above,
Who seek through clouds or waters souls to love,
And leave their lady mistress in despair,
To flit to flowers, as kinder and more fair,
Are but torn love-letters, that through the skies
Flutter, and float, and change to butterflies

i

remember privet road down in winton

those days after the war

the second world war that is


though it feels like folk are at war

always somewhere

maybe we should look after things

and our people


anyway there is a privet plant in the corner of the garden

down by the water pumping station


they want it cut and i want it tidy

so we comprise as i love the smell

of the small white flower come annually


i shall rake the leaves and have made a sign ready

privet corner

it is not a hedge like my grandma had

just a privet plant

Against the perimeter of my childhood backyard
cluttered rows of privet hedges produced
tiny ruby berries, easily crushed if stepped on.
They always fell from the branches
in the slightest trail of wind.

Cougars prowled my playground.
My parents, hesitant to let me out alone,
planted the bushes
in the hopes the cougars would
eat the Ligustrum ovalifolium and never return.

I knew the berries were toxic
and could make me ***** more than what I consumed,
a time bomb in my stomach.
Mother said the poison could make
me shiver harder than a winter day.

When, once, I raised a berry to my lips
Mother plunged forward
and slapped it out of my fingers,
a strange mixture of anger and concern in her eyes.
I was never to pick one again.

I didn’t understand the problem
until I saw two cougars laying behind a privet—
a mama and her cub
no longer breathing in sync.

I come from innocence:
shared VHS tapes,
Disney movies rewound so many times
they got jammed,
late nights spent searching for a lost Elmo doll,
orange Tic Tacs,
bedtime stories by Dr. Seuss
and later, J. R. R. Tolkien,
when Saturday mornings meant
waking up at 6 to watch cartoons,
and sleepovers involved liters of Mountain Dew
and Godfathers pizza.

I come from a magical world
where number 4 Privet Drive is my second address,
Big Brother is always watching,
and sleeping with windows open are invitations for Peter Pan.
A place where Mr. Darcy is my soul mate,
I have two dogs named Old Dan and Little Ann,
to follow a white rabbit is encouraged behavior,
and if you asked me who my hero is
I’d answer with “Sydney Carton.”

I come from opposite sides of the map:
One half includes
Springfield raised grandparents
giving me 20 first cousins,
29 second cousins,
annual family reunions at the lake,
home grown tomatoes,
and alcoholics.
The other half is four thousand miles away and includes
only two cousins,
phone calls every Sunday before two,
and phrases like “Weltrusten” and “Ik hou van jou”
that sound as English as “Good night” and “I love you.”

I come from transformation:
dance recitals where wearing lipstick and hating it
turned into High School
when we all started wearing eyeliner
because it made us look older,
summers soaked in sunlight
are now dampened with summer jobs,
monsters no longer lived under our beds
but in our heads,
clumsy first kisses went further,
romances disappeared
and were replaced with heartbreak
so agonizing
even chocolate couldn’t help,
funerals became imminent,
trophies won at basketball camp- age 7
mean nothing
when you’re told you’re not good enough- age 17.

I come from friendship:**
stupid fights for no reason
always meant brownies the next day,
five dollar Photobooth pictures at the mall,
scary movies we never finished,
sneaking out at three in the morning to swim in the neighbors pool,
and surprise birthday parties
complete with Silly String.
Learning that it’s okay
to let someone see you cry sometimes.
Dumb ideas like wagon racing,
and glow stick fights
that left welts on our arms and legs.
Lord of the Rings movie marathons,
girls night out at Buffalo Wild Wings,
riding bikes down the middle of the highway,
mix CD’s,
Red Mango runs,
words of comfort,
advice,
love,
and seeing the beauty in each other
even when we can’t see it in our self.

I wake and the light of this fine day edges round the curtain.
The birds have chorused and my left foot lies cold outside the sheets.
Standing in my nightgown I draw the curtains and look out at my garden.

Let me pad downstairs, open the front door and walk brief steps
to the arbour of ferns and shells. From a cane chair
I shall view my private corner with its tiny pool and privet hedge:

whilst there is still a little dew; whilst the cobwebs still glisten;
whilst there is no wind, just a grumble of the surf at Porth Neigwl,
the sound my father makes dozing over his paper.

Miniature, enclosed, protected I will place my thoughts
in this dolls’ house garden, amongst the dank, dark shadows
of its many rooms, its parterred spaces.

You don’t walk in this garden; you take a step . . .
and you are elsewhere. Take three steps and you are quite lost.

I hear the kitchen door bang in the manor house,
Meriel is taking breakfast to my sisters.
I think I shall stay here a moment longer.

Beloved, let us once more praise the rain.
Let us discover some new alphabet,
For this, the often praised; and be ourselves,
The rain, the chickweed, and the burdock leaf,
The green-white privet flower, the spotted stone,
And all that welcomes the rain; the sparrow too,-
Who watches with a hard eye from seclusion,
Beneath the elm-tree bough, till rain is done.
There is an oriole who, upside down,
Hangs at his nest, and flicks an orange wing,-
Under a tree as dead and still as lead;
There is a single leaf, in all this heaven
Of leaves, which rain has loosened from its twig:
The stem breaks, and it falls, but it is caught
Upon a sister leaf, and thus she hangs;
There is an acorn cup, beside a mushroom
Which catches three drops from the stooping cloud.
The timid bee goes back to the hive; the fly
Under the broad leaf of the hollyhock
Perpends stupid with cold; the raindark snail
Surveys the wet world from a watery stone...
And still the syllables of water whisper:
The wheel of cloud whirs slowly: while we wait
In the dark room; and in your heart I find
One silver raindrop,-on a hawthorn leaf,-
Orion in a cobweb, and the World.

A privet hedge..a broken gate the House with a roof tiled with Welsh slate,
a broken half open window from which the light throws shadows on the lawn..G'awn be off with you a Cockney voice shouts out.
The Camera pans.

A street,quite neat and real rare around these parts..two lovers on the corner sharing hearts..as if they could beat as one..
Move on there movie man the cop shouts from the black and tan.
The camera pans.

Traffic light that's stuck on green..a crowd gathers." I've never seen the like "..An old girls cry.."Someone will get hurt or even die,call the police "..as if they would bother their fat *** cans..
The camera pans.

It spins and spins upon its pins and captures you and me..and writes in Avatars of cars and flouting clouds of blues and whites,which balance out the unfilmed nights when cameras close their cyclop eyes and digitals tell no more lies.

I rise early like a bird..I heard a camera crew is coming down to film some scenes in my home town.
An expectant hush
An excited rush and then
The camera pans.

The lily’s withered chalice falls
Around its rod of dusty gold,
And from the beech-trees on the wold
The last wood-pigeon coos and calls.

The gaudy leonine sunflower
Hangs black and barren on its stalk,
And down the windy garden walk
The dead leaves scatter,—hour by hour.

Pale privet-petals white as milk
Are blown into a snowy mass:
The roses lie upon the grass
Like little shreds of crimson silk.

I walked among the seven woods of Coole:
Shan-walla, where a willow-hordered pond
Gathers the wild duck from the winter dawn;
Shady Kyle-dortha; sunnier Kyle-na-no,
Where many hundred squirrels are as happy
As though they had been hidden hy green houghs
Where old age cannot find them; Paire-na-lee,
Where hazel and ash and privet hlind the paths:
Dim Pairc-na-carraig, where the wild bees fling
Their sudden fragrances on the green air;
Dim Pairc-na-tarav, where enchanted eyes
Have seen immortal, mild, proud shadows walk;
Dim Inchy wood, that hides badger and fox
And marten-cat, and borders that old wood
Wise Buddy Early called the wicked wood:
Seven odours, seven murmurs, seven woods.
I had not eyes like those enchanted eyes,
Yet dreamed that beings happier than men
Moved round me in the shadows, and at night
My dreams were clown hy voices and by fires;
And the images I have woven in this story
Of Forgael and Dectora and the empty waters
Moved round me in the voices and the fires,
And more I may not write of, for they that cleave
The waters of sleep can make a chattering tongue
Heavy like stone, their wisdom being half silence.
How shall I name you, immortal, mild, proud shadows?
I only know that all we know comes from you,
And that you come from Eden on flying feet.
Is Eden far away, or do you hide
From human thought, as hares and mice and coneys
That run before the reaping-hook and lie
In the last ridge of the barley? Do our woods
And winds and ponds cover more quiet woods,
More shining winds, more star-glimmering ponds?
Is Eden out of time and out of space?
And do you gather about us when pale light
Shining on water and fallen among leaves,
And winds blowing from flowers, and whirr of feathers
And the green quiet, have uplifted the heart?
I have made this poem for you, that men may read it
Before they read of Forgael and Dectora,
As men in the old times, before the harps began,
Poured out wine for the high invisible ones.