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Poems
Two Poems
INSIDE A YELLOW LABURNUM TENT . . .
Inside a yellow laburnum tent
which the rain barely penetrates,
behind a screen of white lilac,
I want to hide.
Queen Anne`s lace and borage
tangle in the foliage
of the lower branches,
showering gold and silver petals.
Fallen chestnut blossom
on the pebbled path
has the reddish colour of raw meat
or scabs on schoolboys` knees.
Stooping, I see the fresh
flowers rest on yesterday`s petals:
darkening, softening,
mulching into the gravel.
Almost every bud and frill
of tiny crumpled leaves,
crimson and iridescent green,
shows the carnal flush of new life.
SNOWDROPS
At the top of the square, the furthest you could walk
last spring, those last few weeks before they took
you to hospital, you`d stop at the same bench,
marked with the name of someone who`d lived nearby,
whose friends wanted him to be remembered.
I`d leave you there to make my daily circuit
past the playground and the tennis courts,
but looked back from every turning. Thin face,
white beard, hat pulled low, scarf around his neck,
no doubt at all – that gaunt old man was sick.
It`s nine months since your death, but I still
see you seated on that bench whenever I pass,
as potent a presence as these firm, bright green
stalks and leaves pushing up through the cold earth.
-- And now you point towards the first snowdrops.