Family picnic –
Swifts circling, feed on the wing ~
A fine stand of pines.
Archives for posts with tag: Ireland
Pittosporum scent –
Strong, mornings and evenings ~
Bracketing the day.
Magnolia blooms –
Battered by the growing wind ~
White plates on the lawn.
Peter the Bluetit –
Freddy the Robin redbreast ~
I’m in their world now.
Picking blackberries –
Against the fading grey light ~
Can’t tell black from red.
Magnolia blooms –
My Mother’s garden renews ~
‘Sure that soil is spent’
Her mother famously said –
She was gloriously wrong.
Some hands know the soil.
They know what to do with it.
They’re not fine hands, clean hands, they’re rough and thick fingered and calloused but they bring life out of the black and keep a kind of order on the land.
They give firm handshakes.
And hold grandchildren carefully like they hold a china tea cup or a fragile flower.
(For Bob, who knew the land and its people well, RIP).
