June Walker

A row of sergeant-majors
stands to attention beside the girders
of the glass-house. Wearing wine red busbies
above lime green uniform stalks:
...

At the edge of close-cropped lawn,
purple vetch, daisies, thistles
and buttercups grow-
a singular patch of wilderness.
...

Yarrow, creamy,
waist-high,
liquorice scent-filled air,
sycamore saplings sprouting,
...

This shell has pockmarks and barnacle bumps
on its rough elephant hide back,
protecting the abalone that once lived
there. The roof inside is smooth,
...

A piece of the pier sits on the horizon,
like a lost hope, or a lost ship,
a perching place for birds,
a marker for fishermen's boats at sea.
...

Bred in a stubborn land,
this hedge of hawthorn grabs frozen soil,
with clenched claw roots.
Its trunks- thick, twisted, gnarled hide-
...

Under fir tree
puffball crocuses
burst into
star shapes,
...

At the top of the road,
tall black trees wear crow's nests
like untidy Maori headdresses.
A passing breeze transforms stiff trees
...

Head and shoulders above rat's umbrellas
beside the canal. Taller than dock plants,
flourishes hemlock, poisoner,
sister to laburnum and foxglove.
...

Drooping head of pansy bud,
white as first snowdrop,
shy as a girl
on her first day at school.
...

A flash of red and black
lands on ridged bark,
finds an open vein of golden sap.
Gathering wasps, hornets, bees, and blowflies,
...

I bought four wooden chairs
from the hospice charity shop,
honey-coloured wood
with noticeable knots,
...

In the grotto, ghostly stalactites
and stalagmites, like termite mounds,
line the narrow pathway,
opening onto an underground cavern
...

A song thrush rubs her chest into dry dust.
Her beak opens - fledgling begging;
her tongue, a sharp thorn.
A white film covers her closed eyes.
...

Mid March.
Spring has not yet arrived.
Daffodils are a promise,
but at least show spindly stalks
...

A lemon yellow dart
lands. A spot of sunlight
on a dark green thorny runway.
Soaks in a moment of calm
...

Violets shelter amongst the roots,
dry leaves for a blanket,
a dash of purple and green amongst the brown.
Quiet and unassuming,
...

There are few butterflies
in the city- a couple of cabbage whites,
a tortoiseshell, and, if you are lucky,
a peacock butterfly with eyes that seem
...

All through the ocean deeps he wails;
a-crying on the foam.
He weeps and wails, and weeps and moans,
‘Come home, my love, come home.'
...

Red stems, stripped bare, jut up
from icy black soil- like the rib cage
of an abandoned boat, keeled over,
on a Winter's beach. A roosting perch
...