Giles Watson's poetry and prose
Dock
DOCK
A dock leaf in downland
Transfigured by sun
Becomes an ascension window,
A collage of lights,
Chloroplast-coloured,
Leaded and held
By a tracery of veins.
Some will turn crimson
As any Chagall, livid
Pointillisms of stain.
Insect-masons chip
At the tracery, mandibles
Champing, invading the green
With pinholes of sky.
Were I a window-maker, I
Would glaze my muse in green,
A nettle clutched unflinching
In her left hand; a dock leaf
In her other, her lips a pout
Preparing to spit on my livid
Skin: the rash she has inflicted.
Source material: The use of a dock-leaf as a means of bringing relief from a nettle sting is perhaps the most widespread and well known of all herbal remedies. The more traditional remedy involved spitting on the sting first: a practice which is indeed efficacious, as the enzymes in saliva stimulate the anti-inflammatory properties of the plant. See Gabriel Hatfield, Hatfield’s Herbal: The Curious Stories of Britain’s Wild Plants, 2007. Poem by Giles Watson, 2009.
Dock
DOCK
A dock leaf in downland
Transfigured by sun
Becomes an ascension window,
A collage of lights,
Chloroplast-coloured,
Leaded and held
By a tracery of veins.
Some will turn crimson
As any Chagall, livid
Pointillisms of stain.
Insect-masons chip
At the tracery, mandibles
Champing, invading the green
With pinholes of sky.
Were I a window-maker, I
Would glaze my muse in green,
A nettle clutched unflinching
In her left hand; a dock leaf
In her other, her lips a pout
Preparing to spit on my livid
Skin: the rash she has inflicted.
Source material: The use of a dock-leaf as a means of bringing relief from a nettle sting is perhaps the most widespread and well known of all herbal remedies. The more traditional remedy involved spitting on the sting first: a practice which is indeed efficacious, as the enzymes in saliva stimulate the anti-inflammatory properties of the plant. See Gabriel Hatfield, Hatfield’s Herbal: The Curious Stories of Britain’s Wild Plants, 2007. Poem by Giles Watson, 2009.