Guelder-rose

“No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.” Hopkins, “The Windhover”

Here in the garden a circumference
of five petalled flowers
a pure white sterile corona
and then within a hub of of micro flowers
pollenous and fertile
almost galactic almost a mandala

Late August a full moon coming
the flowers are gone
leaving clusters of orange berries
now they turn orange-red vermillion
its living colour invites me
totally new to my eye

Here the hungry kestrel thieves
through a broken shutter
the swallows’ nests
rooks steal the apples
red but bitter and unripe
and we cocoon for safety’s sake

Close to the fire’s fallen embers
again that burried colour invites me
nine hundred thousand dead
as I wonder when we die
will our earthed-up sillion shine
our ash gash that gold-vermillion