The sunlight falls,
flickers off leaves and fronds
of fern,
weaves patterns in the hedgerows
that guard the garden,
tumbles and teases the edges of shade,
the glade alight with it,
hugging the watching trees
that are icons,
the grass between a prayer mat.
I sit and soak in the sun’s syrup
as I lose myself
in the soaring sky.

The place changes,
lifts off from the physical, visual
reality of suburban plot
to become a world charged with the glister
of new-born buds, of ants
scurrying in the dirt, of God;
the invisible vigour of life’s longing,
the surging push inside cells,
inside souls, tingles in the air
like incense.

The rain
has taken my garden,
folding it soft and wet
into grey arms
and closing me out.

I am marooned
in rooms and busy thoughts
while spring slips away
outside.

I can only view
from a window.
Cowslips and buttercups
shine yellow
while the grass
shoots strong and green,
revelling in its muddy puddles.

Even the scent of the clematis
hanging over the door
dilutes in wet air.

The garden is exercising its right
to be wild,
not bow to my desires

but soak itself
in the weather
and let its roots gather
the profusion it craves.

This is the season
when time dips its wings
and calls back its black shroud
of night,
tying tight corners around
the wuthering day,
the muted heart.

This is the cold breath of year
when days are dogged by damp
and dark,
when leaves fall and trees stand bare
and bleak
before the fallowing sun.

This is nature’s repose.

Let the roots that bind me
to the season
follow its call
into deeper paths,
finding succour in the stillness,
rest in the emptying days.

The rain is steady.
Grey holds the day
between its cold shoulders.
Time is slowing
as leaves sow themselves
onto the ground,
waiting to turn into earth again.

The trees burn softly,
their scarlet and gold embers
smoulder,
firing the passions of summer.
Others are already bare,
blackened branches
against the hearth of sky.

Even the crows are quiet,
no longer striping the air
with their cries.

We are all returning,
sinking into soil
as the sun lowers and leaves.

The sun is a bowl
holding heat on my skin
like love,
soaking into my bones,
into my mood
like balm.

My knots unravel,
my pressures melt away.

I am butter, oozing.
I am apple pie,
peeled and baked and brown.

I have brought all of me
on holiday,
my toes, my tears, my ears,
the whole package
so we can each unwind.

This is meditation,
my mind not chasing plans,
past and future folded away,
just the glorious, sun-filled
present.