As a keen gardener and nature-lover, there are many poems inspired through the seasons. Every type of flower or shrub. The sky and weather.
Many poems are light-hearted and inspiring. Some are observational or the gardener's dread of slugs and snails.
Heartwarming verse inspired by nature, in all its glory.
From the book:
PEACE OF THE ENGLISH GARDEN
Daffodils shine rigid bright attention
displaying medals every shade of gold.
Summer’s breath, bewildered, bakes crisp springtime.
Hellebores slump earthward-rolling snowdrifts.
Hyacinths, yet blushing, bow out slowly
as Spanish bluebells twinkle in dull earth.
Too green for envy’s night, a carpet lawn,
anemonies’ messed leaves unfurl elf shades.
Dark Pieris flowers, winding long white sheets,
Red Robin thrusts growth, glossy in fired air.
For ever blooms of pristine primroses
And, always, trails of cloud witness blue sky.
Forsythia, no coward, storms like sand
and roses bud their scarlet, vow to flower.
Dwarf tulips dance in carnival too soon,
sun sets in hawthorn’s trooping emerald leaves.
A blackbird calls, as blackbirds always will,
flush collared doves descend and croon of love.
Wood pigeons crash through branches, stealing nuts,
and feeders swing with finches in the breeze.
From dawn to setting sun I hear the cries,
a riot of dull sense my waking hours.
For life is LIVE as cameras still roll
and peace is months or worlds away from here.
COME INTO THE GARDEN, VIRGINIA
Her garden seasons life in sunrise red,
she digs and plants and prunes around youth green.
Trumpeting a maze of shoots, bud yellow,
as hyacinths, brash church bells, peel bright pink
and snowdrops quake, all weathers, ancient white;
waiting muscari’s trace, nerve-jangling blue.
Late winter, yet a time for feeling blue
and wind gusts into gales an angry red
and pallid earth, such recent virgin white,
her heart buds envy, greedy for spring’s green.
Viburnum, blooming late, now dawns sky-pink:
crocus gold binds aconite’s brash yellow.
Structure shapes the garden goldcrest yellow
and ceonothus promises deep blue
and cistus’ bushy form will tissue pink,
photinia shoots first in robin red.
Leylandii, laurels, bays, all shades of green
and many budding flowers’ bridal white.
Eyes teased by focal points seek views, dove-white,
winding routes raise scenes of duck’s bill yellow;
and plays on water features, iris blue.
Soon pieris shoots will carnival bright red
and standard rose bathe bare in cherub pink.
Perspective’s not for those whose journey’s pink,
nor old man’s beard, nor rose a Christmas white.
Virginia creeps up when autumn’s red,
paints nails nerine, hair tied primrose yellow.
Crocosmia her dress, shoes tramelled blue,
her salad days all picked for heaven’s green.
GENESIS OF A GARDEN
Each colour in the garden is so bright
and how can I distinguish so much light:
I know this colour’s paradise is green,
but plants are like a rainbow, it would seem.
How can I name them all, there’s so much time
and everyone to grace my life is mine.
This shock of yellow I can eat, it’s mine
and, like the sun and moon’s celestial bright,
I cannot bear to place its arc in time.
Banana it must be, so fat yet light.
My middle squelches like its ridge-round seam
and now it feels an ordinary green.
This orb is such an opposite to green,
I scent the Tigris’ blood flows deep as mine;
it drips Euphrates’ raindrops from its seam
and as the dew at dawn, it’s ripe and bright.
Taste fires a vast explosion into light,
this orange is a new day caught in time.
I tread upon this wrath of purple time,
my senses shouting to its sister, green.
My body twines like breath, it is so light:
at one with nature, dizzy now spring’s mine.
The night ferments and morning is too bright
and grapes will never be just as they seem.
This fruit rind breaks thick promises to seem
like living things, a forest eyeing time.
Great plumes of shocking wit are ostrich-bright
and nerves must learn by touch when sweets are green.
Ripe pomegranate, fertile globe, is mine
and night will capture day with eyes alight.
She’s wrapped in evening blossom, pink and light
and trammels gently on my middle’s seam.
She’s fat as pig and soft as sheep, she’s mine,
the only girl to grace my Eden-time.
I offer her cool fig, but it’s too green,
although her apple’s ripe, her flesh so bright.
We wrap light leaves against that serpent, Time,
for fruit trees seem alive when pith is green,
and deeper steps than mine shade heaven’s bright.
