It's a Spring Thing!

Here's a little interview that's in the Western Mail today, talking about spring and what it means to me, as well as a poem written for the piece. It's about daffodils - a supremely spring-like, and prominent poetic topic! - and is also kind of inspired by the fact that the National Botanic Garden of Wales (where I'm Resident Poet) has 30,000 of the things, 50 species in all. That's amazing! And well worth a visit to see. More on the Garden's daffodil trail HERE, while HERE is the link the the article in the Western Mail.

Plus, here is my poem, which is actually (really) about not just about daffs but about the human spirit and how it overcomes obstacles in order to, quite literally, wake up, rise, and shine! It's the first time the three, very different types of poem that I write - funny ones, nature poems, and more mystically-inclined things - have all come together in a single piece. This pleases me! There is only a little touch of humour in this, but, for me, it feels like the beginning of a new way of writing, too. All three of my poet-y selves together for the first time... I'm pretty happy with it. Do let me know what you think, though, and happy reading/joyous spring to you all! x

Ascension

From inside unlit bulbs they climb,
Feeling through the crumbling dark;
Fearless spears, insistent shoots,
Certain even in the dirt that there's
Another world, up there.

Eating earth with hungry roots,
Finding paths through stone and rock,
Endlessly rising, eventually emerging,
Green tongues poking from the ground
As if to say I told you so.

Advancing upwards, ever further,
Reaching for their unknown goal;
Finally unfurling, bursting into flower.
Star-like, sun-cast, their golden glory
Sings out: even in the dark, we knew,

That this is what we were.

Imperial

This is a new poem, a draft, not a funny one, inspired a little by thinking about the royals, because of the recent birth, and also by Wales Wildflower Day, which happened recently at the National Botanic Garden of Wales, and which I was lucky enough to attend. Who ever thought the buttercup was such a blighter? Well, it is, so here you go:

I am trying to find the beauty in you, buttercup.
I am looking only at your golden heads.
I am attempting to forget what the expert said:
That your species is invasive.
That your style is ‘creeping’.
That your taste is acrid.
That your sap can cause blistering.
You carry your poison so prettily,
You are lovely to behold, intermingled
With the daisies, as if you were one of them.
As if you could ever be ‘common’.
You will live for a thousand years
And gradually those daisies will be crowded out.
You will block the light from them, put them in the shade,
Steal the soil’s potassium from beneath their roots,
Secrete toxic chemicals from your own that
They will drink, unknowingly.
Thinking that you are a friend.
They will feed it to their children and their children
Will become weak. You will smile as their heads grow limp,
As each generation is born smaller, feebler.
One day, there won’t be any births at all.
And still the passersby will look at you,
And marvel at your pretty golden heads,
So many of them, like cups, reflecting the sunlight
From above, so beautiful, full only of themselves.
The soil beneath now richer than it ever was.