Peter Salt
Sage
Salvia Officinalis.
I surprise myself, knowing
the Latin name for this small plant.
Although my mother obsessively tends
her garden, this is your legacy,
your scientist’s propensity for order.
The common word never quite enough
for a farmer’s boy made good.
You grew into a man who learned
to call a spade an agricultural implement.
In the photographs I have, you kneel
in shirt-sleeves and braces,
forearms lost in intestinal circuitry.
All I inherited was your tankard
inscribed, To Flight Sergeant Salt
For Dropping Coconuts On The Enemy.
I learned nostalgia for that heroic sense of humour
long before I ever heard of cancer.
I surprise myself, knowing
the Latin name for this small plant.
Although my mother obsessively tends
her garden, this is your legacy,
your scientist’s propensity for order.
The common word never quite enough
for a farmer’s boy made good.
You grew into a man who learned
to call a spade an agricultural implement.
In the photographs I have, you kneel
in shirt-sleeves and braces,
forearms lost in intestinal circuitry.
All I inherited was your tankard
inscribed, To Flight Sergeant Salt
For Dropping Coconuts On The Enemy.
I learned nostalgia for that heroic sense of humour
long before I ever heard of cancer.
Page(s) 37
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The