Sheffield Park Gardens
we walked
upright
across wide fields
in scattered groups,
family and tribe,
private longing
under shaded
brim for a land
of silk and money
8th May 2016, with
only childrens’ voices
we walked into
the garden
dispersing to
our hides to make our own
discoveries
by happenstance
and peripheral glance
held cold and fresh
before name:
that stone-chat
that makes the
copper beech
transluscent;
the cool stretch of branch
yet to bud
before the haze
of dusty pollen;
what to make
of the solitary dandelion –
butter yellow life –
amid
fain clusters of primrose; and
there in the shade,
mauve-bells and
daffodil stalks make in-
visible a steely blue;
bluebells
like raised eyebrows, relaxèd
to see a future;
adult voices pass, now, talking ways of life; young girls practise handstands and routines in the fields;
let’s sit by the lake awhile:
where a duck’s
head
sits
just out the shade of exotic plants
(let’s say, from India)
the water lapping
anywhere (let’s say, oh,
two thousand
five hundred
years ago), tucked
immaculate
black
letting nothing out
but the feint
of blue
or green that will form a gem
in kalpas
of contemplation;
across the water a willow rests
like a flag
(girl’s hair
recovers from each upswing from each
hand-stand);
turning home
Carol stooped
to smell the rhododendron flower
“oh, …”
pushed her face
into the petals with lust
was it
because I’d
said the branches
were an orgy of slippy limbs
or was it just me
making things up
as we walked along?
I know, I know, it’s mid February, and the poem was written and set in a May; it’s not seasonally right, but this was the next in line to be printed: them’s the chops …
————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–
air wormhole: Batgirl –
black & blue & Carol & passing wormhole: travelling // arrival
branches & voices wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
Buddha wormhole: om muni muni maha muniye soha
family wormhole: out
garden wormhole: slightly / uphill
green wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Working
hair wormhole: two profiles
Have wormhole: Coleton Fishacre
life wormhole: sweet chestnut
living wormhole: ‘still …’
mauve wormhole: snapshots about Totnes
seeing wormhole: glide
sitting wormhole: amid
society wormhole: green and / luminant / to behold
talking to myself wormhole: ‘God, who am I …?’
walking wormhole: loss
water wormhole: without any buffet at all
yellow wormhole: greedy
mlewisredford 