journal of a writing man
Work in Progress
Delphiniums, abandoned
My neighbours went away, leaving their garden
to passing birds and to me. In their absence,
dutifully on guard, I have watched, day by day
as delphiniums bloomed like neon swords,
proud, triumphant, ecstatic in an impossible blue,
standing erect in a quiet corner.
If there is a universe in which delphiniums
may be described without saying, simply,
that they are blue, it is not mine and I cannot find it.
I watch the stems, see the blooms climb,
open one by one, and welcome the bees
as they come to harvest pale gold pollen.
My neighbours are still away. The delphiniums are
almost done, their season complete, their blue
fading. No-one but the birds and I have noticed.
The sun shines on. The delphiniums are almost
white now; petals begin to fall, stems break, fall.
Their angled remains hieroglyph a remembered blue.
And my neighbours return, holidays done. They
seem relieved to find us unchanged, and think little has
happened here. The delphiniums and I know different.
John Bailey
Lincolnshire, June 2004
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