The bank holiday yesterday brought me up short when I suddenly realised that yes, today is Tuesday! Time to post the Weekly Poem. There has been little poetry writing time in recent months, given the attention that the Geopark Poetry Map has needed. Also, the garden suddenly needs an extra pair of hands. I am better at the destruction aspects – weeding, burning my mortal enemies ‘Sticky Willy’ (cleavers) and Bindweed. We don’t use chemical fertilizer or pest pest control. Our garden may not have official certification, but we use organic principles on our acre. So it wildish and has a carpet of buttercups where the daffodils were in March.
With the Summer solstice and the longest day in the Northern Hemisphere rapidly approaching, we are seeing the last of Spring…and also some signs which would normally have appeared over a month ago.
When Spring
When Spring comes late and cold and the hawthorn
blossoms in June instead of its month's name,
the potatoes are barely up before
blight beckons on Weather Watch and the country
shudders.
Now the old signs no longer hold
say the old who watched them through a lifetime
studying the sky both day and at night.
The wild slowly died to be reborn
in every season's storm, shaking us all
until our teeth chatter. Our speech is robbed.
Too soon the hawthorn's petals pink and fall.
Did we ever see them at all? The signs.
What use is Cassandra locked and in thrall
to toxic vapours? We all know that Spring
came late. Was cold. It raged just like Winter.
Copyright ©Bee Smith, 2021. All rights reserved.
Featured image Photo by Paul Morley on Unsplash
This is an effective climate crisis poem!
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