Julian Duffus

Julian Duffus Poems

The Best Poem Of Julian Duffus

Kew Gardens

This a mystery of Moon
Where silver shadows cast by cactus burr
The shallow fish flash steam
Reflect the jungle ambience of place
Out side the lawn guarded by the Queen's Beasts
and heavy trod by tourists
Retains a spring in the turf that is special.
On through blue bell valley to heavy wood by slow majestic river
Dark is the wood and heavy with a Victorian air
Circumscribed by pampas grass from South America,
This typically English Glade.
The call of Children echoes through the trees
A crunch of plastic sandwich wrapper
Distorted under foot by hurried dinner
departing from the Pagoda Cafe.
Squirrels near by opportunistically twitch
Raised on haunches heads alert for fallen crumbs
Or discarded pork pies
Not a natural diet, but fat squirrels live in Kew
Sustained in the good life of by the droppings of the mainly
Plodding through the gardens,
Receiving a carefully measured dose of beauty
Enough if stored carefully to see them through
The dull, damp slogginess of an Albion Winter.

On wing high above the rough river side field
A hawk waits on the careless mouse,
His dinner to peruse
Still, shimmering in the still warm sky
Further up the Jumbo Roars and coughs it's way to earth
Heathrow & Home, The noise coming later than the plan
But regularly the noise and fumes of commerce damn the sky
A small bell heralds the closing of an other day
Families, Children, Nurses Nannies
Gather up the sheep dog like their charges
And head as if of single mind Gate wards
Homeward.
The penny turnstiles of my youth have gone
Replaced by booths, with computerized tills
Ringing with a muted buzz the difference between
Student, OAP, and me
At last the gardens empty
At least of people
But yet full of life

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