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,
...

Nasturtium flames burn,
red and yellow.
Bumblebees, like cinders,
visit each one in turn,
...

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

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.
...

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

I bought a small ivy plant
and dug it into unpromising soil
above the concrete retaining wall.
It grew like fever-
...

Sycamore seeds put pin prick roots
Into soft earth to suck up minerals,
Like rows of butterflies
Sucking salt from the sand,
...

In spring,
crouching beside clumps of heather,
mouse ear leaves, thin pink legs,
paws that clasp a crumb.
...

One copper sapling on the bank of the canal.
Startling shades of brown rise from green grass,
warmth in the cool.
I feel my eyes open wider than before,
...

is fluffy slate
and smokey grey-
circling in water- pestering, peeping.
Her mother, jet black with milk white arrowhead beak,
...