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Fuji Cherry

A dowdy, dwarfish shrub most of the year,
slow-growing lichen leprous on each bough,
breaks out a thousand buds when April’s here
and shamelessly proclaims ‘Come, see me now’.
Before the ranks of summer march this way
with flags and colours, banners, painted silk,
the eye is held so tight it cannot stray
by petal petticoats as pale as milk.
Her thousand flowers are a just excuse
to throw a party for admiring guests,
discerning friends who travel where they choose
to linger by the loveliest and best.
Excess of beauty surely shortens life;
it has its private purposes and ends;
it is the cause of jealousy and strife;
it brings out rivalry between its friends;
but this is true: the brighter burns the flame
the sooner gone; great beauty is the same
and when it dies our envy turns to shame.



Springer spaniels

‘You have to save them from themselves’ he said
and truly so
for into every hedge and ditch they go
but then he said and it was just as true
‘You need someone to save yourself from you'.