Wiltshire

Home to the Trees


At the edge of the forest
red-eyed tree frogs sing

songs like creaking wood.
Fairy wands and goldenrod

ripple along the sedge
to light the old path

as memory’s green glade
shimmers just ahead, shearing

the thick hedge I’ve grown:
a wall against pain.

Familiar rough logs invite
me to sit, linger awhile

before I leap from the ledge
to caress the clouds below.

Relics –

just what I need: mementos
of a life not lived, of doors

slammed shut against the light.
Yet here I am, stringing stars

through trees, harrowing
old ground for new seed,

wading into swirling water
where I bleed once again

waiting for the soft wind
to whisper me home.

The Scent of Yellow

When I was a child, we moved
every year – at least once
and sometimes more often.

I learned to hate and fear
the fresh dirt smell of cardboard,
the sharp, acid scent of tape

that clung to boxes, fingers.
The oily tree odor of crumpled
newspapers filled the house

as a film of black ink smeared
hands, streaked noses and walls.
Bedraggled bed sheets perfumed

by detergent and sunshine bulged
with clothes, linens – frayed corners
tied on top to form a handle.

Sometimes, even now, as I fold
freshly-laundered, warm sheets
that will never feel the hot

kiss of the sun, the cool embrace
of a breeze, I think of those bundles
like big bandanas and our annual

migration to a new space that always
seemed just the same to me –
especially after Mother painted

the kitchen yellow, placed buttercups
and dandelions in jelly jar vases:
the sweet turpentine smell of yellow.