Poem for a Birthday
I am the single bluebell
In the mowed lawn.
I am the clusters of buds
On the British Library apple.
I am forget-me-not
Self-seeding where it will.
I am water hyssop transplanted
From India, Ayurvedic.
I am a hellebore’s nectaries
Fleshy with pollen.
I am dewdrops beading
Lady’s mantle leaves.
I am dandelion and dock,
Goosegrass and nettle,
Never say weed.
I am honesty, in love
With my faithful moon.
I am the new clematis,
Alba, kissing its trellis.
I am so many yellow keys
Of cowslip, jangling.
I am the different yellow
(Buttery) of marsh marigold.
I am these violas on the step
And their blue music.
I am narcissi –
Pseudopoeticus – still at it.
I am this garden, here, flowering
Against the odds, catching
Every last gram of wind.
I sometimes feel that I have lived two hundred and fifty years already and sometimes that I am still the youngest person on the omnibus.
Virginia Woolf, Diary, 1931
Happy Birthday for yesterday Linda. xxxx
Walk on Botanicus Poeticus, always showing us the beauty and the positives of this our ‘floating world’, sending metta, joy and thanks to you at your birthday time of year x