Wednesday 7 March 2012

KISSING TIME

Still there are wintry showers yet the birds visit my new peanut feeder in abundance - see photo to right - feeder on shed, snow on path.

R has been at the brambles and I went down the road to the horse ladies who have a gigantic heap of the best vintage and brought back a barrowful for the roses.

Yesterday I put up the chicken wire fencing around two of the raised veg beds and then buried the bottom nine inches of the wire angled out from the bottom. This stops the lovely little bunnies from digging under the netting. All I need to do now is make a gate and net that.

I have noticed that nesting and mating behaviour is winding up with the increased daylight, especially in the pond, though two mallard were feeding hard this morning. In the hedgerows and fields the gorse is, as ever, blooming.

THE CYSSAN BUSH
(cyssan - O.E. - a kiss)

Gold gorse
the kiss thorn,
with soft keels
and knives drawn,
spikes doused
in flaxen fire,
branches bound
in barbed wire,

Gold gorse
the wild whin,
one flower
and kissing's in,
but no bloom
kissing's out
and love drowns
- a kiss drought -

but kiss of life,
kiss of death,
saw, saying,
shibboleth?
Kiss the rod?
Scourge the punner?
Kiss the daughter
of the gunner?

Gold gorse
the crackling shrub
with brittle pods
and bodkin scrub,
with linnet nests
of woven grass
wrapped in shards
of broken glass.

Gold gorse -
paper of pins,
that's the way
it all begins,
that's the way
to love and bliss,
one flower -
one kiss.

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