Tag Archives: Poetry

Birthday Flowers

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Frangipani by Aidan Smith

Frangipani by Aidan Smith

I have, my Love, no flowers for you today,
Small summer flowers from cool green country lanes,
No lilies of the valley which you love,
Sweet peas and honeysuckle, wild dog rose
And ragged robin tied with buttercups.
These things we love and for a time have left
And know instead the burning tropic sun,
The rains upon the palms and warm salt wind.

Take then these poems, their garden is your love,
Your sweetness gives them life, for you they grow.

Seychelles 4th May 1969

Branchage

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Potato fields
Are empty;
Haulms turn brown
In the sun.
All along
Country lanes
Sickles cut
Deep into
June grasses.
Red campions
And nettles
Fall with vetch
And yarrow.
The shorn lanes
Are wider
And sadder.
Tomorrow
Men with rods
Will pass here
To measure
The clearance,
Fining each
Landowner
For any
Obstruction.

1971

Under the cherry tree

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Come under the cherry tree with me
To rest within its moving pools of shade
And listen to the passing summer wind
High in the leaves.

Nearby, within her cot,
The baby sleeps, dreaming of lives unlived
And faces not yet seen. Hers is the time
Of total innocence, of rosebud promise
And of quiet content. Yours is the time,
When after fears and pain, come flooding joy
And peace and renewed motherhood.

14th August 1976