1
Was a hurricane here, or a war,
leaving gaping craters where trees once
lined the avenues? Walls are built to fall,
but these roots were 'ripped untimely'
from a womb of soil: Gone;
our Earth invaded, our friends snatched.
Now the Earth is the Moon,
the Moon is Venus hit,
Venus is Mars with all the fire of men.
2
I walk our woodland route, under
the tarmac, and tread abandoned tracks.
Silent freight-lines lost to nature's bed,
gaping craters fresh filled graves
covered by nature's year - and yet,
hydrangeas. Even now, hydrangeas flower:
blue ultraviolet and pink infrared,
their litmus paper petals, first white,
then acid or alkaline,
falling with the earth's colours
to the warm charcoals of the soil.
