A quietening of spirits
A reaching treescape carries you up to the little
house, bare branches scraping fingers at your
shoulders. This November is your own reflection.
Here are liquid jewels in a short glass; one sip
lets the light in, breaks the gloom. The tickle
and smoulder in your chest, an inside-out embrace
– danger is again a distant memory, anger calmed –
prepared, patient – a bright and knowing fly agaric
on the forest floor. This is your offering to noisy
ghosts, gifts for the imp who makes her home inside
your heart – whiskey and rain clear the border
path, steer cold fingertips from autumn to winter.
Groundwork
It’s nine feet tall and too much for itself—full of beetles
and butterflies, a holiday home for snails, blank canvas
for spiders. When I step inside the buddleia’s shade,
blossoms kiss my nose and chin, tap my shoulders, a lace
of stems reach out to clasp my fingers in thanks. I weave
my own spindle arms through the branches, deft shears
nick and snip. When I emerge, wayward boughs cut back,
the treetop dropped down to the height of a lover. I look
up and we understand each other. Evening is still sleeping
at the far end of my garden; next year’s flowers will be sweet.
____________________
Kate Garrett writes and edits. Her poetry is widely published, and has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize, and longlisted for a Saboteur Award. Born in rural southern Ohio, Kate moved to England in 1999, where she still lives in Sheffield with her husband, children, and a cat.
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