Snapdragons and Dandy Lions - Part 1
"Snapdragons and Dandy Lions (Part 1)"
“Don’t move,” she smiled gently,
“stay there, stop fidgeting, let me put these in your hair”,
I was sitting cross-legged
on the lush green bluegrass lawn
it felt like 70’s Shagpile carpet,
long and unshorn.
“I said, don’t move! There’s a Blue Tongue over there,
you’ll frighten it away, they don’t like to be scared.”
She was shielding her eyes surveying the yard
like a pirate on the high seas,
a ship on the Ocean,
while the Sprinkler
kept raining a moving waterfall
automatic motion
here and there buzzing bees
in the Kumquat Trees.
She was pointing to the boulder
next to the Lychee Tree
close to where I was
legs now unfolded
scrambling around on my knees.
It was around 5 in the avo not morn
we’d been there covered in sunscreen
for a coupla hours and
tired from the heat
we were all stifling yawns
in the sweltering sub-tropical garden
amongst her verdant jungle of flowers and ferns
there amongst the strawberry patches, passionfruit, Lady Finger trees,
Pineapples, PawPaws, grapes, tomatoes,
and towers of fragrant sweet Jasmine, Lilac-mauve Wisteria
plunging Deep Velvety Red Bougainvillea,
flirty Sweatpeas and
the pungent Pink Frangipani
impregnating the air with it's fat-belied
perfume, the scent of which to this day
sends one into absolute delerium; then
came the whirring blood-suckers
that bombed us in buzzing swarms
never foiled no dignified treaty -
one was never forwarned,
that left itchy-bites and
eventually weeping sores,
feeling sorry for ourselves
the breeze carried our songs of retreat to which she’d
impart, “Shush! Don’t carry on,
everyone will hear you way out on the Street!”.
“They like your blue blood, that’s why!”,
she explained in exasperation, kind of worried
spraying us with Stingose.
“Tonight we’ll put up the nets and
burn the Tiger Coils”.
(Lovejoy-Burton/2017 Dec)
For Lynette
(1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izQsgE0L450
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