Concerned with what I meant by 'free',
I found I'd wandered down the garden back,
brushed shins past lowest dock leaves' rusty show,
may all spent-up in the hawthorn tree,
apples and pears swelling slow certainties,
buttercups caressing gaze, forget-me-nots
drawing deep into their blue in the gloom;
then I knew the elderflower's sweetness
drugging my dark to loose its goosegrass burs,
and I looked up, beyond the trellised gloom,
to see the highest brambles out in flower -
conquered completely, contemplation blown
like floating seed on ballerina breeze,
to see the little wild bees' amber fuss
in the papery petals, white, spread-wide,
offered as to the sun (this cloudy eve),
the cloud-light shades of their own petals laid
in the crinkles that the breeze flap-trembles,
and above them the swifts' sickle-seeking.
