(roadrage)

YOU F***ING ARROGANT C***!

after weeding

fingernails hold dark cresents of earth

The end of the retreat

We sit in a bright spot and let our books of poems soak up sun. The gong rings for the last meal: mushroom soup, salad, bread. A part of me will stay here, in the vegetable garden, in amongst the overgrown rhubarb.

In the Green Dragon, Sutton Courtenay

The mournful hound rotates his old bones three times before sinking gratefully into his soft fleece bed.

A chaffinch and her mate have a dip in the puddle:
dunking their heads under first then shaking their wings
drops of rain-water scatter, shine, pitter-patter.
Go on - shrink and grown feathers, get wet, fly away...

planted in the cutting garden: sunflowers, cornflowers, cosmos

the remnants of last night's dinner sends out reeking fingers from the bin

at the pub quiz

'chlamydia is a beautiful word - a shame it isn't a flower'

A single green glove on the motorway, palm side down. Dandelion seeds jerk and slide.

Early morning visits with a watering can

This morning the courgettes seedlings have more colour in their cheeks. I see the unidentified squash plant is doing well. I pillage the flower garden, scissors in hand, and fill my small glass vase. This piece of garden will come inside with me.

from a full universe of a day, by the next morning can I really remember nothing worth saving?

slow start tuesday

sleep in my eyes, my body cold around the edges

outside the weeds are growing growing growing

Saintpaulia

I keep the barren African Violet thirsty for weeks. It rewards me with a new clutch of velvet purple blooms above the fleshy fine-haired leaves, each with a golden dot at their heart.

In Cardiff Castle's gentleman's room

As there was a little girl in the group, the tour guide told us that inside those seats was where they used to keep the 'gentleman's adult literature'.

She lies against the hedge as a cat might: front legs tucked under, eyes in slits. I watch the lump of cud travelling up and down her brown throat. She chews, I sit and watch through the kitchen window. Both of us happy.

big patches of brown grass gulp down the rain

Oops

High up in the hedge, a wren trills her delicate song through a piece of papery bark. Before the bark becomes nest it falls from her open beak, sashays towards the grass. The music pauses as she dips her head to watch it drop.

After hours in my halogen-lit office, I open the front door wide.
The sun has been blazing on all morning without me.

that dreaded hard lump when skimming Fatty's fur - the first two ticks of the season

Frog house

After finding two frogs in the vegetable patch, I make them a house to encourage them to stay and eat my slugs. I don't know how to make a frog house, so improvise. It is made of bricks and has an inside swimming pool. The next day I lift up the flap and find one has moved in.

from Percy's Plant Sale: salvia, lamb's ears, unidentified chili pepper, campanula, a crisp triangle of shortbread dredged in caster sugar

I drag the wooden table and chairs from the lawn so John doesn't have to. 8 weeks ago he rolled his car and was cut from the wreckage, and he's already back cutting lawns. It was the first time he'd been knocked out cold in all of his seventy three years.

Great Spotted Woodpecker

The book says his red cap makes him a juvenile. He stands on his tiptoes on the top of the feeder, twisting his head about and yelling 'mum?' 'mum?' 'MUM!'

when I turn my head too quickly an ache speaks up

mounds of bouquets cover the spot where a knife was slid into his body again and again

the stink of garlic staining my fingertips

into this dull Spring day lazily drifts this eponymous butterfly, its wing-tips dipped in lolly-coloured orange

Waiting for Heather to get home

Her stone front step is steeped in sun. Birdsong twirls above the distant deep chatter of trains, an occasional car. A dented empty coke can waits on the window-sill. A woman passes, hunched forward as if she's swallowed a ball of pain. A workman replaces grey slate roof tiles. A skinny girl with a frizz of dyed-purple hair grins at me.

butter

slicing thick wedges of creamy stuff from the golden packet to melt on my toast, my mind travels backwards through supermarket, factory, tureens of milk, inside the cow, and ends up in sweet grass

the globule of water molecules dripping from roof-edge to grass will never travel this way again