Oops - I'm completely off the calendar. I thought today was Tuesday but apparently it's Wednesday which means I have an appointment with my accountants at lunchtime. . . Oh, joy and off I go!
SUMMER
Toenails freshly pink, washing on
the line held by the last
of the pegs, apricots the colour that can only be called
apricot (perfect for picking but rotten by noon). Bees sip
the lavender, the dog has – after a small performance –
swallowed her pill, the girls are up at last cracking eggs
for pancakes. Ian’s making coffee. Blitz of the grinder,
chuckle of fledglings on the roof wanting breakfast – one
being taught how to fly - an asterisk of a cloud dissolving
of the pegs, apricots the colour that can only be called
apricot (perfect for picking but rotten by noon). Bees sip
the lavender, the dog has – after a small performance –
swallowed her pill, the girls are up at last cracking eggs
for pancakes. Ian’s making coffee. Blitz of the grinder,
chuckle of fledglings on the roof wanting breakfast – one
being taught how to fly - an asterisk of a cloud dissolving
in the time it takes to walk to the
compost bin. Summer
here – a held-breath - Now a thousand trees
exhale – now the deep greening that sussurates, resuscitates
- this! pixilated sunlight – leaves startled into silver.
(click on the title or image for more on Mary's beautiful, hand-bound collection)
Don't you love the word sussurates? Especially here where Mary teams it up with resuscitates and vivid, light-emboldened images of pixilated sunlight and leaves startled into silver.
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Mary McCullum is founder-curator of our Tuesday Poem community. She won the inaugural Caselberg Trust Poetry Prize in 2011 with After Reading Auden, and her novel The Blue (2007) won the Montana Awards for the Best First Book of Fiction and Reader's Choice. Mary is working on a number of projects including a novel and children's book. She blogs at O Audacious Book and freelances as a writer and tutor. Mary lives in Eastbourne with her family, and spends summers in the Wairarapa.
On After Reading Auden: 'This poem is full of curiosity: about the river, the light, the landscape. There's story and memory here, and best of all, a patient, deepening re-creation of experience, what is feels like to be, for a moment or two, truly alive.' Bernadette Hall, judge of the Caselberg Trust International Poetry Prize 2011.
For more Tuesday Poems please click on the quill -
Oh Claire - because it wasn't Tuesday after all I thought your weren't putting the poem up - I came here to look at your 'Courage' post and found my poem and the most blissful asterisk cloud!!!!! How cool is that. Thank you so much for including my poem on your lovely blog and for the commentary. Seeing this poem again makes me long for summer. X
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