I receive heart-warming responses from some of you for my poetry, so here are a couple more. I may have posted ‘Evocative’ before; please forgive me if that’s so. It’s one of my favourite poems and one that I hope you will all enjoy. Please let me know if my images stir your memory.
If you’re not a ‘Busy Bee’ yourself (I’m certainly not one these days) I’m sure you will recognise a friend who is, in this poem. Please pass it on to them with love and appreciation; where would we be without them?
BUSY BEE
She buzzes about
ever so busy
my busy bee
darting from daisies
to dahlias and dianthus
dusting them all
with pernicketiness.
Collecting pollen
and flicking it in flowers,
where would my garden be
without her?
EVOCATIVE
Sweaty armpits, old gym shoes,
potatoes rotting in a cupboard,
dirty nappies, pig manure,
a drunk, lolling in his vomit.
Burning tyres, gutted homes,
flames roaring through the bush.
Fried onions, vanilla beans,
bacon and toast and percolating coffee.
Leather seats in a new car,
rain on parched earth,
a baby, fresh from the bath.
Eucalypt leaves on a wet day in London.
Yardley perfume that granny used,
sweet peas, picked from a garden.
Old spice after-shave,
the coat you always wore.
This must sound like an odd title for a blog, but I’m sure most of you know that feeling of wading through papers every time you want to find one thing. I’m talking about the papers that stay on your desk, initially in some sort of order, which probably only you can follow, but they have to stay there until you can get around to dealing with them. Once they’re filed, or put away somewhere that makes the desk appear tidy, you forget about them – at least I do – until a nasty bill appears, or you receive an email from family, a friend, the tradesman who gave you that great quote which you promised to follow up and meant it. I mean the kind of quote that will increase dramatically when you ring again, or the tradesman will be overseas for six months if he hasn’t gone out of business.
to meet in the huge foyer, knowing that the children would go immediately to that enormous skeleton model. All we had to do was keep an eye out for them.
With tickets in hand we soon joined the merry group of Wordsworth admirers for the tour of Dove Cottage where he lived with his sister Dorothy (who seems to have done much of the work around the place while His Nibs swanned about, creating his poems.)
When Susanne and I received our tickets for the Chelsea Flower Show we were also given a year’s membership of the Royal Horticultural Society which included information about, and free or reduced entry into, amazing gardens all over the UK.
Stone walls surround the first, enclosed section of the garden which is managed by a group of enthusiastic volunteers. The day was warm but with rain forecast, we included umbrellas in our back packs. I love the way they have used the stone as a feature in the plantings.
small rowing boats or just playing around in the water. The bird life was having fun too.