Midsummer at the margins

Ragwort in profusion at the margins, yellowy cheer

Heralds the coming of the stripy caterpillars

Whose presence brings joy to my childish heart.

I will seek them out, gleeful, hopeful.

In time they turn from tiny grains of life

To fat expanses of fleshy potential and thence

To their moth form, red and black, dayflying confections.

I will watch their stages, growth and transformation.

St Johnswort honey yellow companion at the edges,

Growing weed cheerful with valerian and bramble

This rush of summer, this outpouring of life

Unpromising ground transformed in plant magic

To green and gold, to flower and fruit, exuberant

With solstice bounty, the high energy of the sun.

One lone orchid, vibrant in the grass, this urban

Renegade this refusal of human sterility, bright 

Reminder of the multihued hordes on higher ground

Wildness is seldom solitary, not by nature

One good foxglove demands another, another

Profusion is the season’s flavour and delight.

There should be countless bees, grasshoppers.

Along the road I hear the silence of the land beneath

The hum of cars, I hear the absence where once

There must have been bird song, I see the barren

State of human creations and I love the pioneers

Trying with all their might to reclaim this space.

My heart hungers for beauty, and I too find myself

Out at the edges on the side of the road,

Clinging to what life there is, to the determined

Presence of wildness, in gasps and whispers

Longing for the songbirds who are not here

And the sweet profusion of remembered butterflies

I am afraid I shall not see again in this life.

Today, the worts, and the blackberry flowers.

Today the beautiful demoiselle flies, glinting

Jewels above the stream. Mourning absence

Celebrating life.