Collectors these,
Unsteady flyers free
And amiable
In the gathering task
And work
To sip the draught
And honey heart
Of flowers
In their ripeness.
And somehow,
More the summer
For their busy
Singleminded focus
And adherence
To the well heads
Of fragrant,
Floral syrup.
And somehow,
More the flowers
As if fluoresced
In admiring presence,
For they ‘are’
For the bees,
Just
As the bees ‘are’
For the flowers.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.
In the cool
Beneath the dappling,
Groves of wild garlic
Grow lush:
Flowers thrust
To the damp and shadow
As wanton spires
Of creamy white petal
And green, sweet scent
Speak of soil, rich
With root bound nutrient
Of the earth found hollow.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
Not in the stone
Or the frame of the flowers,
Not in the lawn or the trees
Or the generous borders.
Only in the eye
Who perceives,
The I
Who perceives.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
One enters through a gate in an old stone wall. There is a peaceful lawn surrounded by herbaceous boarders leaning against wisteria capped, flint studded masonry. Clematis crowns in places: in pinks and white cataracts and green, gushing falls. Shrubs flower in every corner. Great blowsy peonies glimpse from their folds and white finery. Bluebells peep from the underworld and ferns cling to high crevices. At the far end of the sky ceilinged room is an opening in the brickwork. One enters via stepping stones tattooed with the slow engravings of lichens.
In the next room the light is altered and flowers are blue and purple in hue and temperament. Scents are heavy and cool. An archway of twisted and gnarled wood is split by the epoch of vine held flowers: fists unclenched and offering nectars on tiny, fleshy instruments: stamens, pollen clad and bumbled at by the benediction of bees.
In the next room there is the deep scent of peace held in a nook and grotto of silence. More are the plant beings. More is the air and humming of insects in nectarous impulse.
In the next there is a goddess of love who owns the still moment and offers more to those who dally in the mood of her wishes.
In the next there are doorways to secrets, and paths to hidden worlds and spaces clean as streams born new from bubbling wellsprings.
In the next there are deeper things for the mind to fathom.
In the next there is the heart of the world and a fountain to which the lips might sip life’s generous bequeathment and know yet more doorways to the fragrant beyond.
In the next room…….
And in the next…….
Whether tended rose, vine
Or weed in bramble entanglement
We yearn the same dream:
And equal upon the earth
Take sustenance
In sunshine on the cheek,
Leaf or flowering petal.
We are the same in love
And level in our needs.
We are not different in our beings
Or our brotherhood.
We are one under the sun
And one in our differing.
We are together in our reach
For the sky blue expansion
Of life’s meaning.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
May’s ether
Expressing in tussle and tumble
Of pale yellowgreen light
And the falling
Which is cascade
Of movement and stillness,
The half way point
Between gravity
And levity’s upward lift,
The plane
In which we manifest
And come to know its beauty.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
Mid May cow parsley
Dematerialises in the lightest points
Of its flowers,
Alters reality with Hubris cologne,
Reaches with molecules:
Heaps and loads
The air
With sex,
Sweetens and fills
Sweetens and fills,
Purfumes to intoxicated mix
Of heady, pungent scentliness.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.
Something in the heart of the
gardener is drawn to create worlds
in patches of light and shade’s cool pools.
Something calls to make
billowing folds, pockets
and patchworks of flowers, floral
coverings and scented seas
for the lucky summer breeze.
Something calls for the bees and
their burrowing, smothering search
for bliss. Something calls. Something
calls. Something calls.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.
Someone, a time ago, painted a
picture in the living stream of garden
beings. Their beautiful idea, via seed
and years of seasons, and the tender
touch of gardeners’, comes to me as
this:
A flush of crimson azalea.
And there a grotto in which generous
rhododendron blush and bloom in
roughs and frills.
And there peonies unclasped.
And there cherry pinks and white
petals lazily falling.
And there a dappled garden of
magnolia, like so many flamingos,
proud swans and poised egrets alight
each bough and branch.
And beneath in clusters: fritillary,
anemone and daffodils.
As if all were floating on a magical
mist of sunrise beginnings and first
dew drop breaths of times absolute
unfolding newness.
If I were an artist I might use this
fertile gift and call good thoughts
from fresh enriched wholesomeness
and wish them forward, so in a time
ahead, someone might find what I
have found and be likewise captive
and spellbound by nature’s gladness
to willingly adhere to the picture’s trellis.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
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