This Summer

This summer the hollyhocks are high
and thick and fleshy,
and the sunflowers chase the sun,
and the hedge is clipped perfection
and our two stone urns
are ablaze with nasturtiums
and lupins spike the edges
of the path and the greenhouse glass
melts a little more each day, 
twists like wax in the sun and drips on 
the grass.

And here we are we three:
brother's got another painting done,
I type up my poetry
and his woman from Australia
sits in the shade, puts some opera on.

All summer's regalia
in full pomp and circumstance,
tasselled as a brass band,
enhances the richness of the Idyll's spell:
a garden out of time, forgotten and
belonging to a century
before we were born, we wander in -
the plants, the trees, invade the air with fragrances
and all the reds and greens and oranges
riot in the eye
and the silken lemon of the hollyhocks,
all crinkly delicacy, 
is nature lifting up her skirts
for all to see her petticoats.

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