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Jul 2016
The trees are coming into leaf;
the sap is pressing through the wood.
Violets, suspending disbelief
in spring, reveal now one by one
flowers of self-defining hue;
while butterflies with purple sheen
on flimsy wings try out the sun;
the sky's a half-forgotten blue.
Brash celandine invades the beds,
covers brown earth with green and gold;
bold daisies dare to show their heads.
The grass puts on a different green
and grows apace - I knew it would
(when was it mowed last? I forget)
and tangled branches really should
be pruned, but I've not got the heart
to execute or amputate;
in this profusion, who'd be so cold?
Though some day soon I'll have to start
(my neighbours think I've left it late)
I won't rush in and then regret -
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
The first and last lines are borrowed from poems by established poets, but all the rest is me.  The rhyming is irregular, similar to the style Eliot used in Portrait of a Lady.  If you're interested in the technical side, the rhythm is iambic tetrameter.
Paul Hansford
Written by
Paul Hansford  81/M/England
(81/M/England)   
354
   Elizabeth J
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