Sunday. I walk the garden pathwhere sun-blotched paving warms my feet.This border’s rich confusion shows meweeds whose generationsare fifty years, a hundred yearsolder than the house, the street.I name their blossoming:violet, figwort, viper’s bugloss, vetch.
Our garden logs the yearsin layers of planted hopes, yet weeds endure,old words tucked under the hem of speech,leafing up unnoticed till a sudden colourlights the hedge bottom and reminds me,sends me back to the flower book to be sureI’m naming them right:enchanter’s nightshade, self-heal, fox-and-cubs.
A rain shower drives me in, to move asideleaf patterned curtains and stare outacross a garden full of words. Tansy, etym. unknown,perhaps linked to the Greek for immortality,holds up its yellow buttons. I watch seasons passwhile buried names like little bursts of thoughtspring from neglected corners:coltsfoot, bittercress, toadflax, poppy,…
