4.12.99 Devon, England

In the old gardens
I sit beneath an enormous apple tree.
The tree embraces a round of a hundred feet.
Its trunk is short and thick,
roots buttress the weight and dive.
Remove all leaves.
The green you see is algae on the bark,
and lichen bits. The tree is Spring in bloom.
All is white, save the steady gold of bumblebees.
Above, clouds swim fast; here, a breeze
pulls petals from the blossoms,
a steady warm enchanted snow,
which soon be-petals me.

4.13.99 Devon, England

This rainbow spans half the sky.
It arches high above its center
where the sun will fall into the sea.
I understand none of this, but
as I look up, the cloudless blue
rains into my face,
and I am blessed twice in mystery.

Took a lovely long walk through fields and woods yesterday. The wooded bottomlands near the River Dart are filled right now with blooming ransoms and wood anemone. "Ransoms" are a kind of wild garlic that forms large colonies of what look at first like lilies. They carry a stalk with a double white star on top, and a pair of broad lily leaves. The wood anemone is the same as we have in the American East and Midwest. It blushes pink as petals emerge from the bud, but when it opens fully into sun, it's white, except for fine gold pollen in the center.

4.14.99 Devon, England

Outside the Garden

Here, traveler, is a strange universe
of pure white stars,
and they are all twinned
trumpets pushing out fragrance that pulls
us who wander green interstellar spaces
into their throated fires.

In this Ransom Galaxy,
Against dark columns, I am enormous,
for I can reach down through space and pluck
a double white star, and pop it in my mouth

and chew.
My whole cosmos spirals into Garlic
that forces wide the buds of taste
and leaps them into flowers burning white--
pure sharp nebulae of heat swirling
in my enormous tongue.

I've been chewing ransom flowers in their own galaxy,
a fine garlic flavor that leaves sharp pepper in my mouth.
It is such a miracle to eat this directly from the earth,
without the garden's intercession.

4.15.99 Devon, England

The little robin perches on a bush
and sings at me,
and I am deeply pleased
to clearly see this bird.
His beak and mine are inches close.
Why does he dare so near?
And then I see.
in the bottom of the bush,
another robin sits their nest.
He defends the eggs from me.
And so I leave.

The American robin was named after the English robin, which is nothing like the American robin. The English robin is small and perky, goldfinch sized, and does not feed on lawns. It perches in shrubs and trees, and gleans its food there. Both male and female sport a bright orange bib, and both sing.

4.16.99 Devon, England

England's Evensong

It is how the blackbird sings
as the sun falls down.
It is how his throat is liquid green
as buds emerge..
It is how he sings the sun into
loving the other side.
It is how the green is blackbird
the blackbird green.
It is how his throat swells mine
and yours.
How this has always been, here,
in Spring, when the sun falls down.

The dawn chorus of birdsong is so lovely that I forget to celebrate the gentler beauty of the twilight song. The English blackbird is a cousin of our American Robin which also has a fine evening song. The male is solid black with a bright yellow beak.

4.19.99 Cornwall, Britain

A garden is a journey through Time's mystery.
Each seed contains a universe of wild
ready to emerge.
Each seed clasps secrets to its germ,
holds pattern, root and leaf, waiting
water and warm sun.
Each seed we plant contains the universal history,.
Wildness ready to break forth,
drive down root and open green,

But each windchild seed we do not plant
is our Mother
healing green a patch of skin scraped bare,
Witness to how life
again and again scrambles up Time's tree.

I'm thinking today of seeds and gardens, and what amazing mysteries each seed contains.

4.20.99 Cornwall, Britain

In Spring old women everywhere renew
their bargains with the soil
that we call gardens,
the old wise women who
for all these centuries
have woven nets of brush and string,
of rags and vine,
to catch the tender fruits of Earth,
They move with slow economy,
bend from the waist to plant a seed
or pluck a greening weed,
and mutter softly as they rise.
The question is:
Would we know Spring without them?

4.21.99 Cornwall, Britain

All Our Hungry Mouths

The rook flies quickly from the trees
in its beak a large white egg,
something wonderful to eat,
as every egg is wonder-filled.
If a bird can smile with its wings,
this rook smiles.
The rook smiles off into another tree
perhaps to feed its own
hungry wide-mouthed nestlings,
recent from the egg.

It is hard to accept sometimes
that we earthlings love to eat each other,
and that we enjoy it while we do,
our own hungry mouths wide open,
even when it's eggs that we must eat.

A rook is a large black bird of Britain, close cousin to the crow, but with a prettier voice and a large gray beak. Rooks, like crows and jays, are both predators and scavengers, and are vigorously chased by smaller birds during nesting season. Rooks live in colonies known as "rookeries."