Spring cartwheels down these country lanes,
knocks fern and dock for six
as frost exhumes with petrol fumes
tar potholes leaves can’t fix,
while bluebells smoke as downpours choke
torrentially inside
each rainswept flume of beech or broom
chiffchaff and finch survive.
Here pimpernel bedraggle
a grass verge where, windblown,
dog violets snitch through hedge and ditch,
white tape and traffic cone;
but owl and mole won’t tell a soul
and ladybirds don’t grass
on kids who picked wild flowers and nicked
this jam jar for a vase;
its lady’s smock, stitchwort, cowslip
eavesdropping with harebell
on what the crow or wren might know
but isn’t theirs to tell.
