Winter willows

        Winter willows

        a soft ankle-deep gouache of green and gold.

        The way the old river was once then

        when we wore the brightest colours

        we held in scarves and gloves

        and Fair Isle wool.

        All other shades

        were from our pastel paints

        those small flat tins of watercolour blocks.

        We fashioned river trees in amber tints

        and on the page we tried to put them back

        somewhere between leaf-fall

        banks and brush.

        They grew in us in leafless winter sun

        before a flood of other days.

        The rush to school and office

        and when it came undone

        one afternoon almost too late to go

        I crept back to river winter willows.

These poems are from my new collection IN THE APRICOT DARKNESS (view the cover and contents below in my recent posts). They are now being published individually, daily under 'recent posts' on my blog and will be available shortly as an eBook that can be read online or downloaded for free.