naturewriting

15d

It’s been a long Indian summer
and the hips are rotting on the beach rose.

I can almost taste their sour skins –
red balls of seeds glistening…

—Marion McCready, “Rose Hips and Thistles”
published in MADAME ECOSSE (Eyewear Books, 2017)

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/rose-hips-and-thistles/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #autumn #September #naturewriting #naturepoetry

Rose Hips and Thistles
by Marion McCready

It’s been a long Indian summer
and the hips are rotting on the beach rose.

I can almost taste their sour skins –
red balls of seeds glistening

like fiery cauldrons in the late September sun;
green tentacles dripping below.

I’m dreaming of exotic gentians,
alpines, delphiniums.

But it’s the last of the flowering thistles
that stand before me

with their decadent helmets and feathers.
I think of Ellen Willmott

secretly scattering thistle seeds
in her neighbours’ gardens,

spreading pieces of herself – a legacy, to grow
and grow again when her body

is lowered to feed the earth
in a last great act of love.

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