Free Time

Half an hour later and the world breathes again,
Expelling clouds of little birds and leaves
Flapping and rolling in flocks between the branches,
The bark chips, the antique sprawling flower beds,
The shaking fringe of nodding ferns.
Veteran oaks sigh and carry on,
Pigeons sink their tepid coos again,
Rapid crows grate overhead,
The magpies trail flat tails like broken oars
And squirrels skim the rippling lawn

Baptista pauses, hitching up a lamb’s tongue tail,
Contemplates a nut with blank eyes wide.
Her ears are curled and round as conker shells,
A curve rolling into thick haunches, arches between her legs
As she stands, possessing the earth, alert, a miniature wrestling hulk –
Until released, bouncing in waves, undulating grey,
Grey, grey hair with rusty roots;
Frail spikes from a sunburnt scalp,
Or, darker, the thinning moss on a rounder stone,
Now thick and fluid and flying into the bushes.

Here they do not whisper, they do not sleep,
They need no ceremony for silence.
The light is peach coloured;
The leaves are exotic plumage faded to bullfinch
By the dust and secrets of attics –
Gran’s hair, softly uncurling blossoms into the spring,
Smiling two hundred seasons around her eyes,
Sun sculptured hands twining, the supple roots,
Cutlery, crockery, china flowers bob,
The breeze turning from a navy blue skirt

Walk into the sun;
Beams black the shadows, creep warmth among the blades
And sap urges the air with more feral memories
Of hot paving stones and raspberry canes,
Of trellis tunnels and greenhouse panes –
In old cushioned seats, sandy Grandparents recline,
The spectacles, the sun cream, the freckle patch arms
Weave and weave the leafy crawlers
Tangling the distance into darker dreams
Of summers lost in autumn streams.