The Romance of Plant Life

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They tell me few sights are as welcome
as the milk sweet carpet of early snowdrops
on the lawns of the Regency squares,
long before the blackberry bramble crawls over the cliffs
amid calls of skylarks, meadow pipits,
purposeful fieldfares in the hedgerows.
How little I grasp of spring
in the country that gave birth to it—shy musk,
marsh helleborine sheltering in the fens
and dune slacks, cut off from the sea—
early purple orchids on the Downs
and those the Scots called gràdh is fuadh, or love and hate,
depending on the root you ate.
I write to tell you that I’m torn apart
by the loud and pungent chorus
of everything pushing out of the earth.
Damp gardens of daffodils in shrieking yellow,
passion flower tendrils, wisteria in alien proportions.
I thought there might be a lesson in all this,
about seeds, and the things we wait for.
Champagne cork days that suspend themselves,
yet to break—
The contorted willow outside my window
is the first on the street to get its ringlets,
and condensation exhales on the glass.

I’ve yet to find a cemetery iris
to match yours, but recognize
the gentle reach of your fingers
in the horse chestnut leaves unfurling.
What do I really know of your hands now?

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