five red tulips in a white pot III

How can I describe
these whorls that have risen from the soil?
Somewhere between green and blue,
cyan, teal-green…? Or… yes… Persian-green,
this name so apt for the colour of tulip leaves,
that mountain flower

I want to write something about spring

I want to write something about spring,
about the scent of the tomato seedlings on the window sill
about the way the tiny glassy hairs on their stems catch the sunlight
and glitter like gold and silver tinsel.

waiting for Persephone

For the dVerse Tuesday poetics prompt “Persephone“: 

The birds know she is coming.
They are staking out their territory,
marking the boundaries with song.
The sheep know is she coming

August

For the dVerse Monday Haibun prompt, “August“:

August is a time of uncertainty, of transition – of winter greys and browns being suddenly speckled with green and yellow as the daffodils in my garden and the wattles in the bush bloom.
One day I wake to find the birdbath frozen over, and huddle in my coat, woolly beanie pulled low as I rush to do my outdoor chores. The next day the sun warms my back so much I shed layers down to a t-shirt – fooling me into forgetting my woolly beanie the next day so my ears freeze.
One day the air carries the sweet dusty scent of the wattles, the next it is so icy all I can smell is the sharp metallic scent of cold, that reddens the nose and makes it run. And then, suddenly, a hint of spring drifts through again.

A tendril of warmth
curls through the air, carrying
scent of earth and growth.

daffodil tete a tete

The first of my tete a tete daffodils has just opened! Spring must be very close indeed, even though there was a brief flurry of snow in Canberra on the weekend.  So here is a celebratory ha’ sonnet. 

 

 

A tete a tete
with daffodils,
“Well met! Well met!”
their greeting fills
me with delight,
and hope, despite
so grey a day.

 

 

spring’s golden standard

It’s hard to avoid seeing evidence of climate change, when the spring bulbs are starting to flower around the winter solstice. The jonquils started a few weeks ago, in very early winter, and the first iris opened just a few days ago.

We’re not yet into the coldest part of winter, yet the spring is already pushing its way in. I am trying to enjoy it, without fearing too much the summer that will come after.

In winter’s stronghold
spring’s advance party unfurls
its golden standard.

five red tulips in a white pot

Today I am planting tulips.
I am planting five red tulips in a white pot.

hatsu hana, sakura and osozakura

For the dVerse Haibun Monday prompt: Cherry Blossoms. 

Every day I drive past a field on the edge of the village. A view of it opens suddenly between rows of tall trees, and I have to look quickly to catch a glimpse of it as I turn onto the bridge into the village. Today this field is darkened by the autumn rains to mud-brown, and even the sheep, knee-deep in mud, are mucky grey-brown.
But in my mind, it is emerald green with fresh spring growth, dotted with white sheep. It is sweet summer deep-gold with ripe grain and pale-gold with dry straw. It is drought-dry hard summer ochre, with willy-willies swirling columns of dust among the thirsty sheep. It is autumn grey. It is glittering white with winter frost. In a single glimpse it is all of these, all at once, each a vivid transparency overlaid on today’s precious glimpse.
I blink, and the field is behind me and I am slowing to enter the village, where the houses and a line of decorative street-trees begins, the last yellowed leaves falling from their bare branches…

I see blossoms foam,
leaf buds forming, un-furling,
on bare black branches.

broad beans

Tucked up so tight
in softest down,
a darling sight!
So green and round!
Too sweet they look
for me to cook.
I’ll eat them raw.

Cherry Season

Friday afternoon and the highway beckons,
but despite my impatience to be on my way
I am lured off the road –
by a cardboard sign on a dusty ute,
its clumsy block lettering as irresistible as any siren song –
CHERRIES