A red tractor follows the line of the horizon. Glossy crows perch on stubbled corn. Patches of water help the sky to bear its brilliant blue. Begin again.

a moment after driving through the white, the rosy smell of bonfires fills the car

Sit the vase on the window-sill; light pours into the tulip-blooms, fills their yellow vessels up to the brim.

At the lights the moustached man in the next car dances his fingers on the steering wheel. His swoops and taps match the music pulsing from my radio. Amber, green. I pull in, park. On stepping out, a bird greets me with a burst of clear-throated song.

across the water, behind the rippling bulrushes, three mechanical birds stand with their booms all pointing to the left

sweet jasmine

a whiff of jasmine tickles the room; the first five-petalled star has opened up

clump to clump

twice on the drive to work I see whole groups of flighty deer
springing across the open grass from clump to clump of trees

hanging feeder

to get at the seed the robin plays a hummingbird

at the top of a crane

a lit-up orange rectangular moon, gpb printed in white

someone

someone dies, and everything turns upside down

city river

a neglected man crouches near the edge in the mud, throws gobs of torn off bread for the greasy swans

planting polyanthus

in between the showers I rush outside and push their roots into the ground
their yellow circle centres hold the royal purple petals proud

shyly hiding in the shadow of the hedge

snowdrops!

cobwebs

today clearing cobwebs from the ceiling makes me happy

not birds

what to do with the growing rats who burrow into the earth under the feeder?

suddenly there

suddenly there as if they've always been there, delicately tipped blunt snouts in the borders waiting to be shocking red tulips

forest

a sea of dead ferns laps at the trees, the colour of warm brown mud.
sunlight hits a fallen trunk growing bright lime green moss.

a giant hand

the top of the bare-twigged tree is the palest orange, as if a giant hand had used it as a makeshift paintbrush

Leeds Castle

scarlet dogwood
framed by
bright green grass
framed by
stone castle walls
framed by
a quiet january sky

Dream

My cats were having a bath. I left the room for a moment and when I came back their bodies were floating underneath the water, stretched out as if on a warm rug. I had to drag their heavy weight out by their tails and tried to shake the water from their bodies, knowing all the time it was too late.

space-ship

a spaceship crash-lands in our kitchen, sits happily humming... our new huge silver fridge

Riddled

She's wearing an oversized mac and one slinged arm is zipped inside. Her wiry black hair is tied back in a loose pony-tail. Two cheap golden hoops are threaded through the holes in her ears. Her scrunched up forehead is riddled with worry-worms.

blue-bell-blue hyacinth

the gorgeous hyacinth stink sidles up when I'm washing the dishes and nudges me hard

happy-cat-dribble

happy-cat-dribble:
a mark of honour,
but dribble on
your skirt is
still dribble

at B&Q

the old gentleman Sikh they've hired to stand at the exit and say 'goodbye' sends me on my way with warm feelings rising like steam from my shoulders

out of season

we burn petrol in search of an aubergine

red kettle

ten minutes after the kettle boils, tongues of steam still rise from the shining spout

song fragment

while winter comes, autumn hides

stroganoff

rich creamy mushroom-coloured sauce with fragrant mounds of basmati as pale as bone

garden work

cutting into the dead woody centre of the rosemary bush releases puffs of lavender into the freezing air

1.1.08

the dead make way for the newly-born