Bullace
hedge haematoma
blue-black against the fading,
once young green,
bruising for sharp winter thoughts,
clean frost lines,
untouched snow-blank focus

but before, to swell and drop
in the last pale suns,
feed the field mouse, rabbit
and endure the muds

This looks like nature.
Standing on the edge on the edge of a bridge
above a man made pond
surrounded by asphalt trails
trees cracking under pressure.
I walk amongst the preplanned trails.
A pseudo-wilderness.
Parked my car in a designated spot.
The deep blue sly outlined
by artificial sounds and light.
Listening to the sounds of the Earth
thru headphones.

Runners cross by…
To my left is an old Hackberry
Celtis occidentalis.
I’ve learned about nature
in textbooks.
This particular Hackberry is covered in a vine.
It’s struggling to survive against an exotic species.
Further on down my path is humankind
“beautifying” nature
with preplanned gardens
gazebos
marble benches donated by nature loving proprietors
next to sawed off stumps
these benches give me a decent place to rest.

As I continue my walk I come across
an unsightly dead Black Cherry
Prunus serotina.
Soon it will be disposed of
by a chainsaw.
Nature’s blemishes.
Please help us keep the Gardens clean.
Trash around a metal can.
Why do human ***** monuments in monuments?
Dominance over nature.

The flowers will begin to bloom soon.
This family has come to soon to take pictures.
Spring has only begun to spring.

Please teach your children to appreciate nature.

I turn back towards my car.
Signs guide me on the path to return.
The road most taken.
Of to my right is an emergency station
push for help
nature is being taken.
I pass by a stream pristine
if you do not count the five plastic bottle, crumbles of paper and shoe.
The trees above me blow in a soft breeze
which reminds me of air conditioning.
There are areas marked off for protection.
Protection from whom?
We’ve already safeguarded it in gaudy surveying tape.

Resting upon a donated bench I watch a maintenance man
raking gumballs.
Continuing down my path I think
“How long have I walked?”
Suddenly,
A golf cart coming around the corner overtakes me.
Pushing me onto the grass.
My feet sink into the muddy ground.
I’ll have to wash my shoes tonight.

Coming across native grass still smoldering
a controlled burn.
I realize
humankind has learned to perform the duties of our mother
better than she can.

I pause

lose myself for a moment
before I remember
I have things to do
and
there’s a two-hour parking limit.
On my way out I discard my trash in a dumpster
rolling my window down
to feel the breeze once more.

She speaks in cherry red
Prunus cerasifera
He whispers falling leaves
Amongst the diving wrens.
Happy tears shed every morning
Before the Lyrebird sire
Starts his lone choir

Ashen pine blue, flame trees
Quiet illumination
Sensual body of Autumn

I

Curled
a snake of a road
uplifted on a bank
of mud falling
to a welter of mud
glistening gleaming
in the afternoon light

Underfoot
on the rough road
a green mossy
water-**** alive
out in the air
waits to be swept
over and again
by the evening tide


II

Let me stand still
from this relentless
passaging looking
attentive always
investigating the possibilities
of all the eye can see
within a footstep’s distance
an arm’s reach
a hand’s touch

Let me stand still
on this low **** wall
between estuary water
and a channel in the marsh
One - a lively blue
waved and winded
every which way
The other - a muddy brown
rippling in one direction
in slow procession

Let me stand still
but turn slowly
to mark the edges
of the sky’s horizon
turning clockwise
from the north
and return -
a whole sky seen

Let me stand in wonder
as flock and skein
a sky-squadron of geese
high-flying over head
southward out of a pool
of midday estuary light
to disappear beyond
the mainland shore


III

The boat keels over
so the line of her
below-water body
reveals a womanly self
that roundness
that beamyness
so rightly feminine
and now holding to herself
a heeling hull
full-breasted sails
taut in wind and water

IV

A drawing makes the ordinary important
It is a text that forgetting words for once
spells out the body's role in fashioning
our creative thought

Its contours no longer
mark the edge
of what you’ve seen
but what you might become
- each mark a stepping stone
to cross a subject as if a river
and put it then - behind you

V

Soon to be sloed
but wait a while . . .
its lovely flowers
must form first
on this shrub we call
Prunus Spinosa
the Blackthorn

Flowering against
the sky’s blue morning
as if it were -
a cloud of whiteness
a masking of lacework
spread on stiff branches

Yet here
in the garden below
this towered room
in which I write
the shrub has clothed
the end of the garden’s
marsh-facing wall
above and across
and on either side
spreading to newly-cut grass
falling on the pasture beyond
holding itself
purposefully against
the prevailing wind

VI

Silvery in gun-metal greyness
this evergreen edible shrub
(the Sea Purslane)
with mealy leaves
and star-shaped flowers
form a natural border
twixt shoreline path
and salt-sea strand

A hiding place
for ***** its leaves
hold fronds that take
a reddish hue
a delicate shade
welcome-colouring
in this marshness of mud
and brown water

VII

How fitting are the words
correctly scribed on the bench
by the wall in the orchard
next the pond on this fine
sunny day Certainly
‘The time has come, ‘
the Walrus said,
‘To speak of many things:
of shoes and ships
and sealing wax - of cabbages
and kings’.

Yes - this gentle morning
blessed by softest breeze
and shadow-playing light
has formed a place of peace
to summon thoughts
that hold no sense
except to scan so rightly
for the writer’s pen
the reader’s voice

Such random objects
fuel imagination’s play
this sunny day upon
the bench beside the wall
within the orchard
next the pond

VIII

By dancing shadows on the wall
a plaque records his gift:
orchard - pond - and all within
two garden walls
a rough masonry
variously gathered
rich in colour
mark and fissure

Four Italianate hives
cylindrically domed
precariously tiled
set at ends and in between
on fifty yards of facing walls
- as cotes for doves perhaps?
to coo and coo . .
when shadows
move and flicker
on the wall
to and fro to and fro

because he loved this island
so - he wished his memories
might live here and now

IX

Together on the sea wall
she said look
an owl on that fence
over there
Short-eared she said

and so silent
(with surreptitious step)
we advanced - it stirred
and lifting its broad-winged
body flowed into flight
with slow strong strokes
beating hard towards the sea

but changing its mind
(and poising on the wind)
returned to quarter
the field below
where we stood standing
rapt by its silent purpose
as it turned and tumbled
to get a better view
of whatever poor creature
lay beneath its
telescopic sight

X

Here to seek a stillness
I don’t own but claim
I do  - so here and now
in this quiet corner
(my back to that rough-hewn wall
fluid with its dance of shadows)
I wait to hear to listen
and to know . . .

Seated on this bench inscribed
with Lewis Carol’s words
there is an invitation made
to take the time
to talk of many things
(if only to oneself)
Insignificant actions
Graceful words of love
Admiration and respect
for friends and simple pleasures -
We are so blest in all such things . . .
*believing always
a greater Providence
that (so to speak)
waits ahead of us

What a surprise!
A single bud on a rose tree,
Blushing to open,
As glistening dew bathe it.
I moved down the orchard,
Ah! The Rose Family (Rosaceae),
Apples (malus),
Raspberries (rubus),
Strawberries (fragaria).
Having a morning chat,
In awe to see the blooming of their cousin,the rose,
Their leaves trembling with joy.
Roses are red my love,
So are their cousins Prunus,
Plums and cherries,
Red as fresh blood,
Nodding in the gleaming sun.
What a get-together!

I

They have a dusty coating
You can rub away with a finger’s pad
Leaving a small inky-skinned
Plum, wild, of dark blue hue
Found in hedgerows where
The blackthorn grows:
The sloe.

Pick in September
October even,
Its colour seemingly so at odds
With Autumn’s trends
Of brown and orange, red and gold
This prunus spinosa (or so it goes):
The sloe.

II

How this photo’s colours
spell autumn this dull
rain-threatening day we walked
almost empty fields so I could
crunch the stubbled wheat

and you might pocket sloes
to halt you said
that earnest kiss
or passion-promising
hug against the gate.

Unemboldened resolve
whispers wantings
to me
Now I hold back desire
held by blindness and inexperience
If I had any chance
I would ask, I’d confess-
Yet you
and I
end here.
I won’t trespass, and you ought not to know
how I want you.

I knew an old stoat to relieve his throat
drank custard from his fungible boot

Be mine dear Prunus, be mine
He sang
Never mind dear Dulcis, never mind

And as he drank and sang, and sang and drank
I began to thank, and thank so hard I nearly sank
too depths so depthed too deep to see
the rolling mood washed over me.

*Let’s link arms dear Prunis
and turn our noble gaze
and together ride the ocean swell
until the end of days

your salix for dreaming
under fagus for swinging
on platanus for shading
beneath juniperus for grieving
about quercus for remembering
with liriodendron for reaching
above prunus for sweetening
up pinus for smelling
around ilex for hiding
behind acer for uplifting
your heart
tree

Peaches
     /Tuesday/
Kingdom- Plantae
Genus-Prunus
Symbolism-softness, tenderness, but grounding in reality- foreboding my fantasy.

Used in prose:  peaches, with her plumpness, with her skin pressed against mine, seperated only by my budding insecurity. When will you go, will I be fine?
    If you are a peach, dangling from a tree, and I am only, A flower or the leaves. When will you drop? When will you plummet and with it, I wither and decay.
   If only I were a willow tree, no ornament linked, or if you could be plucked early, before sour becomes sweet?