On an Easter weekend run,Enjoying a bit of springtime sunIn Chiltern woods and up Chiltern HillsI asked ‘What do you like best about spring?’‘Primroses, Blossom, Bluebells’Most said Bluebells – except for Gil‘Blossom’ he said, ‘I’m a blossom man, me.’Like Houseman and his Cherry Trees;
Loveliest of trees the cherry nowIs hung with blooms across the bough …
Then the wind begins to blowAnd cold wet blossom fallsNot petals but snowThe hail assails us in the windSmall white stones of ice and spite‘Ah April can be the cruellest month’as we run through the woodland rideWearing white for Eastertide.’
Time was when I walked through bluebell woodsAs a child with my mum and dadThe beauty covers the woodland floorBut pick these flowers and their beauty is over
The fragile sadness of bluebells in bloomA carpet of beauty, but over too soonSummer growing nettles and bramblesWaiting to take over the woodland floorStinging and scratching in their rampant cover
But today I walk to the wood with mumTo Sulham to celebrate the bluebells againEach year our pace a little slowerAnd stops for rest a little more oftenBut still walking here on this spring day
And mum says,‘How many more bluebell springs will I be able to walk this way’
And I think of Houseman’s doleful lines‘Now of my three score years and ten, twenty will not come again.’Lamenting that, although still youngToo few more times will he see the cherry bloom‘And take from seventy years a score, It only gives me fifty more.’
But mum has four score years and fiveAnd celebrates that she’s aliveWalking to the wood where the bluebells growTo see them in their stunning show.
Kathy Tytler
We love receiving your poetry, and print a selection every week. Verse can be sent to poems@wokingham.today
