Waiting for Rosamund and other songs

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Dear Monty,

Today I would have been meeting Rosamund in my garden.
The Clematis is flowering for her along with the Rhododendron complementing Montana's palest pink - white blooms.

Alas Rosamund is not coming and so the wait continues - but will the garden bloom for her ?

Her seat in the cloister awaits.



Rosamund is from the National Gardens Scheme - I await her visit anxiously - rescheduled for the end of May.

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Sitting in warm sun - sudden heat,
New leaves
Birdsong mixes with children's voices - echoing afternoon playtime from the village school on the hill.

Crow, hover fly, bumble bees, thrush thrum.
The wind not carrying the sound of cars today
A gentle day
One which could pass for peace.

Buds break on the Norwegian maple from what seemed dead branches
The miracle of the green fuse.

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Art in the park

Dyffryn House Cardiff




Thunder clapping cloud without sound
Drops of rain the size of peas
But the heavens do not open

Here I am in Dyffryn House Garden
Estate of gentry long gone
Grand acres rolling to the horizon

Making an exhibition of myself
I feel invisible in this tent
Exhibiting terrifies me
Makes my nerve endings buzz

Then I find my mouth boasting about commissions
A cover -up for my vulnerability
What a fool.

The light comes
Striking on the wet paving of the Mediterranean Garden

Birds sing life into the tent
Life in all its fullness
They do not need to boast
To feel accepted

A low rumble like thunder from the furthest part of the tent manifests itself as voices
Human voices in waves
We drown in them sometimes
Voices are everywhere.

Sometimes I prefer the voices of birds or dogs
But other times there is poetry in our voices
Like the blue-eyed woman who bought a painting
Speaking volumes with those eyes
And the man who sung of butterflies.

Then the heavens finally open
And out pours a waterfall of encouragement from unexpected places
The rain comes in from Abertawe with old names in its drops
Joseph Herman
Vernon Watkins
Philip Wilson Steer
Ceri Richards.

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Welsh funeral

Honey scent in the warm damp air above the valley and its roar
Hyacinthoides Hispanica
The savage interloper
But a sweet scented savage.

Welsh was the funeral service in Capel Calfaria
Remembering and forgetting

Lives can have a great impact
Can be fast and furious
Joyous and injurious

So are all our lives
And we end them in such a small wooden box adorned with tokens.

Who remembers ?
In time we forget
Which makes the scent of bluebells so precious a thing
Fleeting and poignant.

Spring broke in after our mournful singing
A sparrow irrepressibly chirps
Joy unbounded
Nothing known but toil and singing -
Once the preserve of this village and its miners.

The rumbling voice of the Minister sing songing his rrrolling rrrrr's
And growling base
Soon to be a dusty memory.





I'm waiting for Rosamund.

Paul.


Comments

  1. Anne Wareham17 May 2016 at 14:23

    That is sooo hard, Paul! And it always seems that the garden, which was so ready, won't be half as good in a month or whatever. I'm so sorry that happened to you.
    Love the poems though. Esp the exhibiting one.. Xxxxx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Paul Steer17 May 2016 at 15:30

      Rosamund had a good reason to cancel - It just prolongs the uncertainty ! Is this a garden worth visiting ? When it has just developed over time in fits and starts and in response to a personal vision - like making a painting - it may not be seen in the same way by someone else. I suppose this is creative tension and without it I wouldn't feel alive. X

      Delete
  2. Diana Studer18 May 2016 at 21:55

    Hope the garden smiles again for Rosamund's (second) visit.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anne Wareham27 May 2016 at 23:00

    Sad but true. Rewards are costly in anxieties, disappointments and - sometimes - anticlimax! Still, wish you success Paul. Then you can report an insiders view back to me!

    ReplyDelete

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