Shades of green – Ajaytao

Shades of green – Ajaytao

Shades of Green

Far past my spring green age
I sit, all autumn touched with frost,
in introspective summer sun
and contemplate the lines and limits
of this limp and languorous life.

Above and beyond, the marbled sky,
creamy clouds skilfully stitched by
sedulous swifts into the clear cerulean blue,
to patch and paste a quilted backdrop
for my bordering bank of trees.

Such trees! Such leaves!
Such showers, shoots and sprays
and clamouring cascades
in myriad shades of green:

Here at the very twig tip
the freshest of spring green
brings to my musings small fingers
shyly seeking in the spring meadows
for the timorous hand-holds of new sweethearts
and soft lips barely brushed – first steps
in a dewy-eyed dance of love.

Further back, a deeper green,
so like the fiddle-head ferns on mountain fells
and bracken fronds bent and broken
flat for comfort in passion’s pas de deux
or deeper still to bring to mind
the glass of quarry pools and strings of weed
a-cling to strands of slick and sodden hair.

Emerald leaves spark a memory of firefly nights
tucked tight together with Terpsichore:
a passionate prelude to a closer dance.
Higher, in the conifers, blue-green needles
dusted with a hazy hint of smoke
take me to the sea and secret sandy dunes
and languid cherished shoreline loves

So many greens, from mint to sage,
and clever besides to pick each time the perfect
foil for blood berries and pastel blooms
and even in the passing time, the fall,
the beauty shifts from gold to flame –
though sad to say these painted shrouds
will duly die discarded on the ground

And so I sit replete, content
with visions I could not invent:
to soothe my soul and please my eye
these shades of green will ever satisfy.

Michael Graeme Coxe