The View
The Garden Closed in I am safe. A still, small thing swaddled in carapace nursed in rich familial humus. Suckled amongst exotics citrus, peach, pineapple. Knowing no wind or rain until by chance an incantation affects a glance, magnified in glass; a view and I am charmed. I grow a longing to awake. The Meadow Unbound I celebrate a wide haugh. New faced and dew kissed, I witness sweet vernal give space to early orchid. Then summers wings and timothy dancing move the heat and I am giddy with creation. These days are long with purple flowers waving and limbs grow strong in rich alluvial soil. A chanting stills my drift and a star eyed forget-me-not tempts me to the glittering water. The River Unmasked I am exposed, a sapling played with in white water, soil torn from root. I am pregnant with idea, but loud-mouthed fish and critiquing boulder could drown me with their chatter. Water might be warmer into a winter but few prosper in shifting gravel. It might take a frog with hiccups or a thought with wings to save me from the river. The Woodland In community I blossom. Confident, limb to limb amongst a choir, some ancient, some new. Leaves collaborate, usher ripening seeds to glow. Grafting to the light we tether our dreams, journal them between the rings. At the end content to fall cradled into the earth. The Structure Closed in I will be safe to be bound, unbound, unmasked or forgotten passed hand to hand, compared and reformed. Critiqued or acclaimed caressed by voice. Mycelium to be worked into and out of always part of the structure the beams, the pillars, the table the window frame that holds the glass the glass that first magnified that view.
About this poem
Tom Murray says ’Ruth is a poet who uses symbolism with remarkable effect to illuminate the growth of the writer Scott. ‘A still, small thing.’ A seed fed and watered by its surroundings till ready to imaginatively explore the wider world, to venture beyond the ‘Closed in I am safe.’ Ruth connected with Scott through visiting Abbotsford House, Scott’s home, a place where his creativity flourished. Ruth says. ‘The Abbotsford glass house is in quite a delicate state but some old panes remain. A muddle of ideas came clear in the moment I imagined what the view must look like through the old bubbled glass.
