To the dusk
Flowers put their moods
In scented wafts
On which the eyes might close,
Deferring to the only open sense
Of the tantalised nose,
In which such enrichment
Is found in sweet distillate
Of earth and loam:
The mind somehow
Washed in perfumed sherbet,
Cleaned by something
Made perfect,
Alerted to the essential element
Volatile under the mid summer moon.
Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016
A mood of flowers
Blooms upon the village
As if an agreement
Had been drafted
Between last years seeds
And every verge
Offering to couch botanic.
And ever crevice
Containing a crumb of soil
Or even a puff of dust
Lends its dampness
To root indulgence florid,
Borrowing mid-day heat
Radiated from old stone walls.
And the gardens?
Well, they have burst their borders
And splurged to soften
The corners of the village
With lilac drifts
And wisteria trained to show
The fullness of a May day.
And iris tongues
Loll and flounce
And poppies are prominent
Atop the walls,
And all the other
Bells and beauties
Claim the air with scent
And the space
With perennial buttresses
Of stalks and spikes
And overarching species,
Daubing brickwork
With exuberant flourishes
Like the flair of the artist’s mood.
Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016
Unfurling ferns –
Undone by the light
Or the moisture
Touching the root
Or by cue unfathomed
But by the mind of the plant
– Reach out
For expansion’s
Many multiples.
Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016
Beside the stream’s
Incessant polishing
Of stones grown
Round and golden
As sun-speckled eggs,
Groves of lush garlic leaf
Cluster to the damp lips
Of the woodland floor
And raise illuminations
To light the meandering path
In its pondering
Through dappling glades
Of newborn leaf
And bluebells
In strewn multiples
And swathes ankle deep.
Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016
O what solar incandescence,
Warm upon the face,
For us to freely take
From source
Diurnal everlasting.
And O what sustenance
In which we bathe
And garner flesh,
So we might glide
Upon the motive wing
High above it all,
Absorbing precious gift
In updrafts,
Light as breath
Of daffodil glowing
In yellow flush expressed.
Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016
It’s as if the spirit,
Pale green and new,
Brushed our realm
For the briefest instant,
Igniting the cool magnitude
Wrapped in guts of plants
So all are suddenly aware
And blinking and charged
And rolling on in lattices
And internal xylem flows,
Abandoned to their task
To raise the sexual forms
Of flowers in to the high air,
Burgeoning with all the winged
Busyness and assistance
Brought by the sun’s worship.
Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016
A day or two at most
In this floriferous moment,
Where white is defined
In garlands
And upon the breeze
And strewn upon the green.
The garden in pale fresh notes,
Hardly even a thing
Before altered
And borne away
Upon the wind filled clouds
Searching in the blueness.
Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016
In the countryside
Hawthorn flirts salacious,
Fluorescing champagne heady
In puffs of magic breath
Strung light upon the hedgerow’s
Dour skeletal winter branch,
Split and thankfully broken
By plethora encrustations
In scores of tiny white flowers.
In the town and village
The roads become boulevards
In which magnolia offer
Perfect molluscs
To the neat and leafless,
And cherry blossoms
Enlighten the spirit
Like wedding bells
And confetti heaped,
While winter jasmine,
In shocks of vivid yellow,
Leaps out and streaks
In lurid flares of flagrant disbelief.
Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016
The cool dawn
still tendrils damp
on dew cloaked leaf
and humid mist
of the night breath diminishing.
Each and every blade
of the mop flop grass
wears a sparkling jewel
in which the sun quivers
as a white hot fragment.
And the concrete path
mottles transpiring art
in patches of sunshine
scolding from behind
swift passing clouds,
while every vigorous plant
is flushed to upthrust,
called and prompted
by firm osmotic grasp
and fluid’s turgid evaporation.
Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016
In millennial silence
beings conceived at the very beginnings
unfold as they have timeless
known revolutions diurnal
and the cyclic swing of earth
in its year long voyage
in praise of wisdom
gifted by the star sol.
To know a billion years unaltered
and be in generation’s span
of always true to sun –
receiving the endless flow
of time’s nourishment
and the gracious matter
felt by every quivering leaf
as heat’s warm bosom
and light’s so gentle hand
– is first and only truth
within the kingdom
of father in heavens certainty.
To flourish is birthright
upon the world’s good earth;
and moss, guiltless in the whole,
takes its rightful place
among the children,
and thoughtless absorbs elation
as it was so lovingly sent.
Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016
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