Quite a few of the prose pieces began life as poems when I went around the country from Lands End to Cumbria giving poetry and prose readings.Not quite the other end of the country! I thought readers who have bought my book might like to see the original pieces.
This one is a memory of baking and bouquet days when I was a little tacker! Jealous of the attention mum and dad were giving each other.This inspiration the picture it conjured up was used by MARTIN HESP when he did his superb article in the WMN one Saturday back in September.
SPRING RITUAL.
The lane was a boundary line
Over which I was not allowed to cross.
An ancient track between two tracts of land,
Our fields and a neighbour's field and copse.
In the hawthorn hedge a tangle of bracken stalks,
Woken by the vibration of hoof on stone
A sunlit slumber of basking slow worms slithering
Away from the lumbering-echo-creak of ash and iron.
White sweet violets in a secret single clump.
"Whoa boy!You sit there and hold the reins."
His rough fingers fumbling with the short stems,
Head bent,drinking the perfume in deep gulps.
In the kitchen the aroma of potato cakes and buns,
A tiny bouquet on the black oil cloth.
A wrap around embrace of overalls and apron,
A small shape thrusting against the boundary.
Flour-fleck-petals floating down on my tousled head;
In the hawthorn hedge a gentle stirring in the grass.
