The country is awash with flowers
on every *****, in all the dells,
The hedgerow with its ivory stars
its golden cups and sapphire bells

Yes, summertime is here once more
that warm and lavish, golden place
Where buzzing things with pearly wings
come flying straight into your face

Now jasmine scents the alleyways
I breathe the sweetness of the grass
And see the world with winsome eyes
like Alice through the looking glass

Those pollen grains that make you sneeze
are but a kind of faerie *****
And every dandelion- head
looks like a feathery powder puff.

While in the bushes now i hear
the sound of elfin industry
That droning like a distant saw
that is the music of the bee

I long to see a garden so
towards the flowers now i go
I view them as if gazing through
the peephole of a raree show

I peer into the damask boudoir
of a rose and there I spy
a ladybird so miniscule
it seems a beadlet to my eye


Then watch a dragonfly upon
the ruffle of a peony
as dainty as a painting from
some distant Chinese dynasty

At last I see the creature rise
as if a jewel had taken flight
And shimmer like an opal as
it flashes past my line of sight

And so I hope to always look
about this world with childish gaze
And notice treasures such as these
on balmy, golden, summer days

Amidst those dark, uncharted times,
when leaders locked the planet down,
A stag leapt from his woodland home,
and took a trip around the town.

In centuries past, this centre was,
the verdant playground of the deer,
A meadow of Elysium,
and fragrant flowers blossomed here.

This stag, of gentle-footed step,
was full of soft-eyed majesty,
In fustian coat with, on his head,
a crown of rugged ivory.

And tall and strong and slow of gait,
just like an emperor he trod,
Along that concrete boulevard,
where once the kings of France played God.

In days of old they would, no doubt,,
have hung him on a palace wall,
While courtiers dined on quail and swan,
inside some sumptuous, draughty hall.

But now it was as if he were,
upon a glittering victory march,
As we, the vanquished, watched him stride,
beneath the vast, Triumphal Arch.

And gazing on the silent street,
I felt about to burst as I,
Stared like a parrot from a cage,
at laughing birds all breezing by.

That sticky prickly sickly sun
it is the source of life i know
But everywhere I go it sits
in ambush like some fiery foe.

This sun it makes me hold my breath
and dazzled by the shimmering light
I cannot wait then to exhale
in limpid gardens of the night

And so like sunburnt labourer
returning from the fields, I crawl
Away from scorching brick and stone
to chilly church or marble hall

Or else I seek the velvet plush
of mossy woodlands strewn with dew
Where frogs take baths in icy pools
and violets blossom far from view

But when the winds begin to rise
I soon forget the fires of hell
With thunder rumbling low, I walk
as if beneath a magic spell

And like those dancing figures
that you find within a Grecian frieze
My skirt begins to float as if
upon some preternatural breeze

The park, a halcyon cloister now
so far from brutish summer heat
I stroll past pomegranate trees
and watch a blue winged parakeet

Then clear as water from a font
bright drops of rain begin to fall
And bless the parched and yellow leaves
the pomegranates, birds and all

I breathe a sigh of sweet relief
the struggle now is at an end
The winds caress me smooth as silk-
the sunlight has become my friend

Too often when the clouds have come
to bring their storms and gushing rain
I seek that world of childhood days
the faerie orchards of my brain

Where skies are painted cobalt blue.
and pears grow thickly all the year
Where southern winds blow cool and sweet
for climes are ever clement here

But winter days are over now
I stumble, tired-eyed, from the dark
towards the misty morning light
the sleepy kingdom of the lark

Like buds my waking eyes unfurl
I smell the honey on the air
As petals flutter from the trees
around my head and on my hair

My nerves, as roots in frozen soil,
have broken from their sheaths of ice
And now I view with heightened joy
spring's flowery bird-filled paradise

And in the trees it is as if
I find on every slender twig
A twittering finch, a lemon or
a fragrant cherry blossom sprig

Cool as a deity I roam
this airy temple of the Spring
Before the savage summer heat
starts setting fire to everything.

You breathed a furnace on the town.
and made a desert of the street.
The oleander withering.
as asphalt cracked beneath my feet.


Our Lady gazed down from the wall.
it was as if she pitied me.
As cool and cloistered as a pearl,
beneath her marble canopy.

The air hung thick and filled me with.
such tension that i nearly burst.
And worst of all I could not quell.
this deep and dusty-throated thirst.


There rose a fountain in the square,
It only made my stomach sink.
For even Neptune in his bowl,
was parched without a drop to drink.

And here the birds refused to sing.
The statues all were blind to me.
No starry jasmine on the stem.
no honeyed fruit upon the tree.

But then at once the sky turned grey.
a halcyon breeze began to rise.
As drops of diamond rain appeared.
and fell like manna from the skies.

Now silver trickled through the streets
a bird shook opals from his wing.
While gurgling fountains brimmed with pearl.
and all the world began to sing.

And then that scent of earth and sky!
That bracing mix of soil and rain
That made me think the deities
had joined us on the mortal plane

I'd sit in church, on rainy nights
with gargoyles gurgling at the door
And dream that I was setting sail
towards some warm, uncharted shore

I'd leave this land of unbaked clay
of plodding cow and dreaming spire
Where flowers are wan and fruits are sour
and where the heart is without fire

For realms where colours pierce the eye
where rainbow parakeets parade
And peacocks sweep the jungle floor
with starry plumes of bright brocade

Where silent tigers skulk around
in painted orange velveteen
And fix their prey through lacquered leaves
with eyes of flashing tourmaline

Here everything is huge, as if
beneath a magnifying glass
The flaming, angry flowers poke
and lick and stab you as you pass

And in this great Promethean kiln
where lifeless clay was given breath
The spiders spar, the mantis prays
and tigers tussle to the death

No place for salon-cloistered swans
who glide around all dewy-eyed
In some Imperial hookah-dream
and never see the world outside

While I...I long to see it all
the light, the squalor and the mire
the lotus rising from the mud
the dark, the splendour and the fire!

She lived beneath the spuming waves,
A crown of pearls atop her head,
And like a pearl her limpid face,
Her lips of fiery coral-red.
Her palace was a sunken cave,
With scalloped roof and amber walls,
While golden-paved and turquoise-domed
Were all the dark, rococo halls.
The candlesticks, the marble busts,
The amphorae and frozen clocks,
Were spoils from all those star-crossed ships,
That came to grief upon the rocks
And when the moon beamed through the waves,
She dreamt of life upon the land,
Of painted birds and pungent flowers,
Of honeyed fruits and sunbaked sand.
She pictured there a gorgeous prince,
His eyes like shards of peridot,
A youth with hyacinthine locks,
And raiments of forget-me-not.
But when she woke, she knew that she,
Would never tread upon the land,
Nor smell the flowers, nor taste the fruit,
Nor kiss her lover on the hand.
And as she held this solemn thought,
That they would always be apart,
She felt as if an icicle
Had struck her squarely in the heart.