There is a pair of Blue Tits investigating our lighthouse bird-house.
There is some beautiful architecture in our small town.
Today’s poem is ‘Flowers’ by Frances Horovitz and I found it in my new poetry book, Being Human, a brilliant collection. I love the two contrasting pictures that this poem brings to mind.
Flowers by Frances Horovitz (1938-1983)
(for Winifred Nicholson)Flowers,
a dozen or more,
I picked one summer afternoon
from field and hedgerow.
resting against a wall
I held them up
to hide the sun.
Cell by cell,
exact as dance,
I saw the colour,
structure, purpose
of each flower.
I named them with their secret names.
They flamed in air.But, waking
I remember only two
– soapwort and figwort,
the lilac and the brown.
The rest I guess at
but cannot see
– only myself,
almost a ghost upon the road,
without accoutrement,
holding the flowers
as torch and talisman
against the coming dark.
