OAK

I am oak.

I am one and I am many.

The sentry guarding the edge of the field,

The edge of human and unhuman time.

I am memory itself.

 

I know you by what you are not.

You are not deer, nor fern, nor moss, nor sunlight,

Which I suffer, repel, harbour, collect, reach for.

You are tiny swift feet running beside the river over my exposed roots,

You are hands that caress and touch,

You are the axe that bites.

 

You know me by my refuge,

My quiet sun-dappled arbour.

But like the moon I have faces you never see.

I have a face I turn only towards the moon, the sun and creatures of feather.

There is rain, ice, snow and wind.

There is a knowing.

 

I am my cool understory,

Alert to hoof and musk of deer,

Secretions of fern and wild garlic,

The footfall of you that is not deer, nor fern, nor moss.

There is a knowing.

 

I am a chthonic tangle of limbs thrusting into the deep, dark womb of the earth,

Speaking, listening, and waiting.

There is a knowing.

 

I gather the earth, the river, the field and the sky.

I am patience itself.

I am one and I am many.

I am oak.

 

THISTLE

You whose eye is always on the far horizon,

Now rendered speechless,

Reduced to a ravishing, hungry gaze,

Falling upon my purple buds,

Tight and closed here,

Opening and thrusting rudely there.

 

You are caressing and exploring me with your eyes,

A jealous captive to this rogue prince of the field.

A honey bee drunk on the secretions of my sex,

Stirs a lazy leg,

As a bonking beetle, the colour of

Hot magma, climbs across his back.

Two snails – hard, black and green spirals,

Cling and suck on my prickly extremis,

Swallowing each leaf whole.

 

You want to run your finger along my purple stem,

Shiver at the sharp prick of my defence,

Gently tease a thousand soft petals at the crest of each open bud.

You gorge on me with your eyes,

But are left hungry.