I have been waiting for the Sage to
flower
This village of grey green furred
leaves like ears
In spring rooves spread curved about the compost
Now build cathedrals, articulates
spires
Skyward, like furred radio towers.
I
have been waiting for the Sage to flower.
How it has grown, grey-green furred
leaves like tongues
That wag in wind, pregnant with
utterance.
Rising like a snap of timelapsed
helicopters
They stretch their soft cupped tips
slowly upwards.
My mother says it is good husbandry
To snip back stem to base before it
seeds
Or that lush Sage company grows chaos.
Sparse mess of wooden lines, withered
ears
A mass of snakes at death. The roots
expire.
I have been waiting for the Sage to
flower
This tall copse of rushes, soft leaves
like ears
Still in the morn, a landing patch for
flies
Around the black bin a grey forest
throngs
Steadily rising furred leaves like
tongues.
Faeries make their home there, in purple cups
A bit like bluebells, with a summer
outlook
A feast for bees now the rocket has
passed
All the Daisies and Borrage, Thyme
flowers.
Since retired my mother's Thyme is pruned
To perfectly round bowers, pres
d'Agen.
I have been waiting for the Sage to flower
Its
towers engulf the old compost bin
Slender grey green palms now
stand two foot tall
Their bobbled leaves loll slow like
thirsty tongues
Hanging silent in the July sun.
Thick
trunked trees well mulched, strawberry patches
A thatch of dry
grass, Ivy and Yew
And the faeries will stop, when they pass
through
Sprites and pixies too will come
For the purple flower
with veined leaves like tongues.
I have been waiting for the
Sage to flower
From rising tongues it has built its
empire
Elaborates joints like candelarbra
The
old black compost bin in forest lost
A cloud of veined grey-green
tongues that thrust.
I thought, clear in error, some
dyslexic
Misfiled season that Sage when it strung
Its palisade
in spring would purple bring
And faeries soon but many moons have
sank
And still, my mother would have said the other
A, not
April, how fell, my foolish mind
Does serve me ill.
At some
august time, correct and proper
After purple sentinels have
trumpeted their nectar
The grey-green tongues have fed the
zenithed bells
When flies have drank and bees, the faeries swum
In
purple cups and pixies played harp
Upon the petals; I will take
scissors
Cut stalk to base afresh, tight bunch the stems
With
Honeysuckle twine and hold bright flame
Carrying all about house
and garden
As witches would have done
A censer make of silent grey green tongues.
For
good faeries will come rushing to aid
And bad faeries will turn
tail and run
When they smell the scent of a home burning
The
purple cups and their soft ears aflame
Fig hollow, foxglove will
house those that came.
And set ground afresh for spirits next
year
I have been waiting for the Sage to flower.
