Down through the painted ironmongery
of the dragonfly gate, ironic in winter-bleak;
and the chill damp rose from the river
as the path dropped there in clean emptiness,
except, that I note - among the frost obliterations,
the shrivelled grey of failed nettles -
a few new show so hardy-green, squat between
broken dead sticks of old woody weeds.
I stop to photograph alder cones - that's it?
Well, of course there is gorse, yellow fellows
for colour-hungry eyes in this grey day,
and the muddy brush hues of twiggy trees.
And up we go across the bridge, trip-trap,
hoping for trolls, but no, and up the other side.
Here I am holding forth on brambles,
on hardy, pestiferous weeds - and yet
the meadow grass, how lush it is for that -
when along the ridge a flock of frisky sheep,
*
old beggars jumping like lambs, kicking up heels
and raggedy comic tails, pointing curves of horns,
come charging down the sodden hill,
till they see, how, actually, Baa, human strangers
we really are, and scatter back in rabbly line,
duddle-um duddle-um - No. No horns blowing.
Now a tiding of magpies has a sit-down
on the ridge above us - secrets and lies -
twenty one daisies we count in the long lee,
ambling down, no newcomers yet, no coltsfoot,
just the hangers on, survivalists in these parts.
Catkins wave their yellow tails in the gloaming;
and the mist rises from the river, the by-waters,
hungry to claim a realm - we to cook a dinner.
..........................
YOU ARE READING
Greenclad.
PoetryIvy-jacketed, December oaks on road-borders shock their stark gestures at us now, through sun and sleet, that January will yawn at and February, propping eyelids, will desperately ignore, longing for blossom; and making do with the least of anything...
