for Jan
 
Lives blue-rinsed, staid marriages engrained,
Doily-stitched brows un-knit to Masefield’s
And Houseman’s nostalgic fruitcake crumbs.
 
Crystal-eyed Mave winds us down the lane
Of her Irish girlhood’s buttery patois—
Kisses-in-haystacks lass, buttercup-under… 
 
Grown four words to sow their own poems
—‘joy’, ‘wood’, ‘spring’ and ‘flowers’—each one
Summons bluebells, hidden in thought’s wood. 
 
‘Bluebells brushed by the April balm’;
‘Bluebells twinkling in the cool dark wood’;
‘A spring wood filled with a joy of bluebells’… 
 
A bloom of old dears whose petals lose fade
For blossoming moments in the shady sway
Of a tree-beamed church’s creaking boughs—
 
Bluebells, twinkling in the cool dark wood.


© 2008 by Alan Morrison. All rights reserved.