Joy's embraced from behind
by reaching limbs
of the Kaffir lime, and over my shoulder
long digits of purple sage mass
their startling indication,
as we sit on patio's edge
by cut of verandah shadow to celebrate
mosquito-free May,
supposedly
November's Antipodean equivalent; but
such tandoor sun a pale UK
November could never conjure;
though it dazzled mightily,
could never bake a back
so needy of such deep heat,
nor precipitate a noon doze
(in which a prop-plane-scale descends
microtonal on approach to base,
leaving, on fade out, legato silence,
tinnitus hisses...
and a lone car
surpassing adagio, so
double-breve).
Little green tomato baubles swell yellow
on extending stems -
bees puzzle over
mazy variegation of geranium leaves,
fumbling to a deep floral sheen.
Beyond midge-danced lawn, somewhere
under the peach tree, one frog
in garden corner sets off his lust-alarm:
I hear it far; Joy hears it shrill.
High gum leaves, barely stirring,
are attentively still.
Oh, tiny black ant, running by pencil tip,
now perplexed by table's slatted bars,
now by the sheer edge, traversing lip.
'Do you know where you're going to?'
Trio of magpies flute 'The Addams Family.'
.................
The media above is for the little black ant. When I was young and the song was fresh out, I used to sing t in my head going to sleep, in the days when sleep was easily wooed, to the music of cars going by off... into the distance.
The media below is for the magpies.
