Myra Schneider
Orford castle
Only the keep survives, a fist thrust
into the blue above the hill’s humps.
Its stone silence commands attention
but mine’s fixed on ladies’ slippers.
I’d forgotten wild flowers will grow
in profusion as if massed heads
could stop death: vetch petals narrow
as veins, poppies that clutch my heart -
how does such brightness stem
from sandy grains? Let loose from
charabancs, pupils storm the hillocks.
Voices everywhere, slipping into shriek,
they don’t notice the flowers, abandon
one summit to conquer the next or roll
down slopes. Some are picnicking
under an old tree that’s lost a limb,
others sit crosslegged in the open,
their concentration on the tale
that’s being unfolded so tangible
I could gather it into a basket.
Suddenly the group swarms upwards
and the whole hill is spotted
with children in red peaked caps -
poppies on foot, unstoppable.
Fingers point as butterflies twin
in the air, a green spider streaks
over my shoes on threads of legs.
A red-capped boy who has raced up
the path we’ve climbed slowly,
confides: Now I’ll run down again!
and the freckles on his soft new face
are stamen dots. This is the core of it -
not the keep which turns out
to be a shell - but all the energy
that has pushed up through
the dead past, feeling the spill of it.
Page(s) 37
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