Rose Hips and Thistles

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.