The earliest blossom in our garden – mirabelle, or wild cherry plum

After I sent in the manuscript for my first book of poetry – The Year’s Circle – a couple of months ago, I felt I needed a little creative winter – of rest and quiet and recovering energy. Lately, I’ve been finding things catch my attention again, and my pen and notebook have been coming out into the garden with me.

What follows is the closest to a finished poem that has emerged so far, and I thought I’d share it with you.

Last year, in the long hot, dry summer, we had an abundance of fruit. I thought this year the trees would be exhausted, and take a bit of a sabbatical too – it’s a healthy pattern….. but this spring, hot and dry as it has been, has been awash with blossom, and now, in the few days of rain we’ve had, the fruit is beginning to swell. It’s looking promising!

Blossom

The blossom opens –
first mirabelle, then pear,
apple, cherry, Iranian quince,

A white tide frothing and foaming
over the garden, dazzling,
loud with birdsong, petals opening
like hungry beaks in nests,

All opening in turn, and all,
in turn, shaken by the sudden
shifts of wind – how hot it gusts now.
So the petals fall, they tumble
over faded daffodils, spent tulips.

And so it seems that all is lost,
all that blossom, all that promise,
all that beauty scattered on the wind.
How the spring days scutter away.
 
And yet, I have come to know that
all is not lost, even as the petals fall. 
They had their purpose.
And that purpose – invisible at first,
then the tiniest roundness
of stem, of not yet – a held breath
of green before summer’s ripening. 
And it will come, it will come, in its time.

I’m particularly pleased with these two small trees. They’re both a few years old now, and this is the first time they’ve started developing tiny fruit. The top picture is a pear, the bottom the Iranian quince – fragrant and delicious. When I see these small, new fruits, I’m reminded of that rich and ancient civilisation that has suffered and is suffering so much.

May the people there know peace once more.