gardens

Stacking Logs

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A winter sun

Glimmers pale

Through leafless branches

Alive with liquid dew buds,

And under a mackerel sky

I put myself to stacking wood.

–

From the store

I load an armful

And carry it to the pile beside my front door,

Savouring the woodsmoke air

Impregnated with birdsong.

Logs chime when they’re ready:

Knock two together and hear the clink

Of the summer’s drying maturation.

–

I stack the logs,

Throwing them together in a rough fit.

There’s the scent of twisting smoke again,

Sweet as warm-hearthed living.

I separate the smaller pieces for kindling,

Reworking the rest

Into a collage depiction of a fragmented trunk,

The grain of years encircling me.

–

A patch of light breaks through

And wets the leaves of an ornamental plant,

Unveiling the lingering touch

Of the vapour-breath night.

Once again, to the log pile

Where I find a hibernating wasp

Torpid in a fibrous crack.

I set its home aside,

Mindful of its sleeping potential.

–

Another load hugged,

Rough and calloused

To my fingertips.

Each piece

The perfect wholesome weight,

A measure of reality’s depth,

And warming my heart

Even before the spark has caught,

For the flame of life

Burns vigorous,

Ablaze in my heart

And the heart that is the world:

Life burns vibrantly bright

In everything,

In simply everything.

With A Sudden Thud

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With a sudden thud

A robin

Hit the pane

And dropped.

It brought me from my chair

To cradle its tiny frame

In the cup of my hand.

I watched the last few moments

Of light in its eye

Before it faded away.

What is that light

So easily uncoupled

From the loose body still warm?

What intangible element

Glowed so fierce

Then dimmed over a long moment?

What miracle

This tiny death,

The being unsheathed

With but the stroke between a heartbeat

And the final fall

Of a red breast

That barely made it through a season.

A Breeze

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A breeze strums

The feathers of the Scot’s pine

Towering above my garden,

And a wind chime

Gently interprets

Each gust.

There is a magic in the creak

Of the flexing branch

And the twisting sinews

Of fibrous bark;

An instrument

For the wind’s fulfilment.

Always, a dove coos

When I find the wind-full tree

Of my life

Existing in the silence

Of a tangible happening,

Drawing out the now

From its hiding

Until I am like a finely tuned

Sensing apparatus,

Filled with the sticky movement of sap

And vibrating

With the sweet resonance

Of life’s thrill

Through fronds of waxy needles.

Cool Breeze Beneath The Plane Trees

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London is sweet

In June’s ownership.

Roses billow

From front gardens

In to quite, shady streets.

There is a cool breeze

Beneath the plane trees,

And reality flexes

With a deep breath

And a mind expanding.

I read in the paper

That rare orchids had materialised

On a green roof

Among towering edifices –

An astronomical improbable chance!

Someone was quoted saying it was miraculous.

It made me wonder

What other miracles

Are yet in store,

Idling just off stage,

Unseen in the formless realm,

Unexpressed possibility

Awaiting only

A nod of our head

And an invitation to be.

From Soil

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February mizzle wets

The lights

Of snowdrop, crocus

And eager daffodil,

Soothes and lubricates

Their birth

Through soil

Mulched humus rich

And frangranced sweet

With spore’s mycelium.

To think,

Some slander this complexity,

Call it dirt and mud

Overlooking the quantum truth

Of gardeners’ gold,

Both foundation

And sustenance

For all.

Perspective

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Whilst watering the garden pots

In the stilling dusk

I turn

And look,

Take in an unexpected perspective,

An angle from which I have not perceived,

And suddenly my breath

Is swept from my chest

By the beauty of the rush

Of plants propelled springward

And joyously becoming

Their exponential selves.

And in that gathering moment

My heart swells

For their vividness,

For the life sweet in their being,

For their entwining and wondering reach

Into spaciousness,

And for the bud of a poem

Born on the sap-surge

Of my lip,

And giddy with the prospect of flowering.

ⓒBen Truesdale 2020

Symbiosis

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From dirt springs complexity
In the structure of flowers.
And to these
Come the elequance of bees,
Symbiotically bound
To the promiscuity
Of the plant’s future needs,
Yet self-serving on nectar’s
Seeping generosity
And suckling on plenty’s summer day
And its eternal rotations,
Both diurnal
And the season’s sleep
And interludes of wakefulness,
Through which the sun arouses
Generations of dormant seeds.
Copyright 2016 Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice

Brother Hedgerow

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Sometimes
He is broad as thicket
Or enclave copse.
Sometimes
He is thin and sparse,
With but an eyebrow’s tuft
Skirting the field boundary.
Sometimes
He is lone bramble
Upon a flat plain.

But always,
Wherever he rests
He is tangle
And vegetal mess
Of thorn ramble
And nettle,
Dry stick and twine
Woven to nest
By birds
Who feel the home
In his charity.

If he had friend
In the human field
He’d call scarecrow
Brother,
For he too is silent
And watchful,
And made
with a bundle
Of dry stems
Plumping the body
Of his jacket.

But still he is beautiful
Though he is ragged:
For in April
He is delicate
With hawthorn
And blackthorn bloom.

And in June
His foxglove reach
Invites bees
To a hundred purple gullets.
And wild honeysuckle
Are his delicate hands
And the pale instruments
Of his fingertips.
And upon his brow
Are white elder crowns,
Sunward seeking
And scented.

In September
He is ripe and juicy
With the blood of elderberries
And the pert invitation
Of blackberries strung
Like necklaces,
Many and fruitful.
And crab apples,
Hard as stones
Grow gnarled
While sloes
And wild plums
Are succulent on every
Loaded bough
And branches’ reverent bow.

And always
At his feet
Are the rustling species,
Snuffling and foraging
The dry shadows:
The timid shrews,
The field mice twitching,
The hedgehog unfurled
And fearless
And the Badgers
Trotting pathways:

All these
His tender friends
And tenants
To the openness
Of his limbs,
Gathered snug
To his rosehip chest
And the leafy beneficence
Of his embrace,
Herbaceous and enveloping.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015