Foot bruised by an accident of enthusiasm
I can sit on the salvaged Parker Knoll recliner
pondering in splendid regality.
Spider Queen surveying her domain
of seven growing decades
Through wide opened double doors
On the hottest day of herstory
~
Up close (and so personal)
A bee fusses the scented pelargonium
on Dad’s old hand built coffee table
Marquetry stained by decades
of over enthusiastic watering
A fly dies in the cobwebbed corner
~
Foreground of swaying
frothy alchemilla mollis
Mum’s favourite coloniser of stone patios
and steps, perfect foil for sweet
Pastel pink blowsy Summer Wedding
rose blooms, stark against darker shadow
Memories of those North facing gardens
~
Backdrop of top heavy sycamore crowns
Rustling with seed jewels
Harbouring raucous caws of picus picus
Five for silver or six for gold
Most likely seven for those family secrets
Never been told
~
In the midfield young rowans
reach adolescent feathered arms
Up to the light. Early years stunted
by the North wind
Now finding strong footholds
Deep in the Donegal granite.
~~~
donegallizdoyle 