On the verge...please read my poem
On the verge
On the verge
trapped between tarmac sterility
and the efficiency of modern monoculture
hogweeds reach lacy umbels skywards,
roses trail their delicate perfume amongst cocksfoot
and timothy, nettles and brambles threaten intruders
with passive aggression, thorn and sting
ready to repel invaders.
The verges, bordering lanes, trunk roads
and motorways, overlooked by speeding motorists,
preserve memories of hay-meadows, cowslips and ox-eye daisies
blooming amongst totter grass and sweet vernal, bee orchids
secretly hiding between knapweed and scabious, rare trefoils
and milkweeds concealed by their more humble cousins,
with clover and meadowsweet scenting the summer breeze.
On the verge, seed heads are ripening, yellow rattle drying,
pods of man orchid turning yellow, bush vetch producing
black peas, new life in waiting, in readiness for rain
and autumn’s scattering.
By the verge a farmer has heaped mud from the ditch,
clods of clay, infertile, burying the purple orchids
a foot deep in sludge; a tractor is mowing, cutting swathes
of wildflowers for the sake of tidiness, frustrating
unripe seeds from their germination, turning refuges
into mundanity.
Where there were bellflowers and bedstraw, dock will grow,
where blue butterflies flicked from rock-rose to rock-rose
and lizards and adders soaked up the heat on bare patches,
rank grass springs up, coarse and scentless; where hedgerows
sprawled their fruitfulness of haw and hip and blackberry,
the field boundaries are slashed into servile submission.
Here and there a halt has been called to this deadly destruction,
preserving pockets of summers’ beauty, reminders
of childhood’s bounty, in hope of resurrection of waysides,
which is now and forever on the verge.
Published in Reach Poetry 269 Feb 2021.
On the verge...please read my poem
On the verge
On the verge
trapped between tarmac sterility
and the efficiency of modern monoculture
hogweeds reach lacy umbels skywards,
roses trail their delicate perfume amongst cocksfoot
and timothy, nettles and brambles threaten intruders
with passive aggression, thorn and sting
ready to repel invaders.
The verges, bordering lanes, trunk roads
and motorways, overlooked by speeding motorists,
preserve memories of hay-meadows, cowslips and ox-eye daisies
blooming amongst totter grass and sweet vernal, bee orchids
secretly hiding between knapweed and scabious, rare trefoils
and milkweeds concealed by their more humble cousins,
with clover and meadowsweet scenting the summer breeze.
On the verge, seed heads are ripening, yellow rattle drying,
pods of man orchid turning yellow, bush vetch producing
black peas, new life in waiting, in readiness for rain
and autumn’s scattering.
By the verge a farmer has heaped mud from the ditch,
clods of clay, infertile, burying the purple orchids
a foot deep in sludge; a tractor is mowing, cutting swathes
of wildflowers for the sake of tidiness, frustrating
unripe seeds from their germination, turning refuges
into mundanity.
Where there were bellflowers and bedstraw, dock will grow,
where blue butterflies flicked from rock-rose to rock-rose
and lizards and adders soaked up the heat on bare patches,
rank grass springs up, coarse and scentless; where hedgerows
sprawled their fruitfulness of haw and hip and blackberry,
the field boundaries are slashed into servile submission.
Here and there a halt has been called to this deadly destruction,
preserving pockets of summers’ beauty, reminders
of childhood’s bounty, in hope of resurrection of waysides,
which is now and forever on the verge.
Published in Reach Poetry 269 Feb 2021.