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.