Breathless, breathing deeply

Passing by the jaunty multicoloured pebbles

Cheerful in restraint

As I escape constraint and limits,

Feeling freedom free from

Families and familiars,

A pathway strewn with days

Leads to the soupy mess

Of leaves and reeds

And reaching weed green fingers

Like waving coral, while I am out of reach.

The thistle heads on point of bursting

Brashly bob against the

Waving willow wickets in the wildlife wilderness garden,

While the wind runs fingers

Through my hair, shaken free from tether.

Teasel carcasses rattle

In this charnel house

Of apple bodies dropped discarded to the mulch. 

And sloes on leafless twiggy branches

Milky dusted cataracts, signifying mortality.

But even in this world of copper coloured death

A proud pale primrose starts its life

Pushing through the swamping mulch,

And a heavy verdant rose of

Fleshy petals nurturing potential foxgloves

Starts the backwards twist 

On the mobius strip of life.

By Susan Cartwright-Smith.