The Iris

                                    for Ira

‘If you wish,
I shall grow irreproachably tender:
not a man, but a cloud in trousers!’

-- Mayakovsky

The garden, soaked in a summer

flood of sunshine and colour

threw up a spike of stalk, the

green of grasshoppers or pale

finches. On top of the stem an

iris flower punched its subtle

weight through the dappled

shadows dropped by the beech

hedge. Canary yellow, its petals

hung like a cormorant drying

its wings upon a rock. The sun

struck it, feeding the flower

with more golden power to

astound me. Beautiful in its

stillness, I caught and tamed

it as a portrait framed by sunlight.

The Garden

I send you these flowers,

their petals deconstructed

and redesigned as pixels

on a screen and the light

from your windows shocks

them back into life. I

imagine you being able to

touch them; feel the smooth

skin of the real blooms back

here. Can you pick up a hint

of the sweet scent, see the

stalk bend almost imperceptibly

by a weak breeze sent from a

warm summer? I imagine you

walking in the garden now,

searching out patches of shadow

and seeking other flowers with

warm leaves, bright petals. 

Cornwall, August 2013

Gypsy caravans