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.