June Walker Poems

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.
...