You cannot hold Winter
Children weep for acorns
and their plummets of blackcurrants
They have lost their Midas Touch
Urban foraging is bygone pride
Categories:
blackcurrants, appreciation,
Form: Free verse
GOOSEBERRIES AND SHARP CREASES
The plumpest, juiciest, hairiest gooseberries
My grandfather grew in a circular bed,
Dead centre of the immaculate lawn.
And blackcurrants under netting,
And a Victoria plum tree in the far corner.
He taught me to hitch up my trousers at the knee
When I sat down, to avoid spoiling the creases.
And to touch the peak of my cap
When I passed a lady in the street.
But he was a sick man;
Tuberculosis and diabetes that would send him
Into long, deep comas.
He would have taught me a whole lot more,
But for that final coma.
1st July 2020
In Loving Memory Poetry Contest
Sponsor - Regina Riddle
Categories:
blackcurrants, death, grandfather, sick,
Form: Free verse
As the days shorten and skies darken
Greenwich meantime feels like a lean time.
With a heavier coat I go out scarfed,
my hat pulled down, to find those last leaves
compact in corners and crevices.
With whitening fingers gloved I crouch
and pluck them for leaf mould; while wood lice
watched by a robin, head cocked, alert,
are plucked as he darts for a morsel,
as blackbirds too pluck the last berries.
As a north-easterly blast attacks,
it is time to retreat from the chill
wind into a defensive shelter,
to sharpen secateurs for pruning
apples, blackcurrants and gooseberries.
Winter battles as the rain rattles
on the windows, probing and testing.
I bring in some logs and lay the fire –
match to kindling it begins to roar.
Now dusk it's time the curtains to draw.
Hot drink clasped, I behold a new moon
crescent up into a clearing sky.
There beneath the starlit canopy
snowdrops begin to poke through the grass
as if to reflect the countless stars.
In the morn I rake moss from the lawn
to keep warm – it pays to keep moving –
with aconites as if acolytes
soon to join a vernal procession
into the promise of renewed life.
Categories:
blackcurrants, garden, moon, november, rain,
Form: Verse
Rowan berries cluster orange
ripening an August morning.
Tart apples crisp knotted branches,
fallen, scarred fruit
soften wasp warm soil.
Blackcurrants burst sweet
bowing from boisterous bushes.
Spent raspberry canes rust
birthing fleshy new shoots,
prickly with prospect.
The rambling red rose laughs
leaping the garden wall,
thorny veins throb puce
under an energetic sun.
A cloudy sea races
beneath the stirring breeze
as trembling trees shudder
the call to Autumn.
Dark shadows bounce
peppering my lawn
I stretch,
brushing off
the creeping dread
of dark days
to come
MMC © 2011
Categories:
blackcurrants, life, nature, seasons,
Form: Free verse