John Freeman lives in Cardiff. His latest collection is
Landscape with Portraits (Redbeck Press, 1999).






Life

Someone who had studied the question wrote:
"Opening out and closing down: that's all
it does." I see what he meant. We expect
a middle bit, the show itself, the point.
To say there isn't one is perhaps to say
look for the point and show in the bits there are.
Energy, movement, growing physical shapes
with intricate form, pulsating, never still
even in hibernating animals. Energy, matter, form -
and something more important than these:
desire and fear, pleasure and pain, the thirst
and the drinking, wine of life, the throat.








The Old Garden

Lilac trees lavender bushes
michaelmas daisies chinese lanterns
loganberries tomatoes blackcurrants
Cox's Orange Pippin mint foxgloves
red hot pokers hollyhocks
clematis ivy Russian vine
grass dandelion clover nettle
ground-ivy suckers of plum
earthworms ladybirds gnats
flies earwigs centipedes
sparrows blackbirds bluetits
pigeons seagulls cats
the occasional fox roses
begonias polyanthus
bluebells daffodils forget-me-nots
loose-strife chrysanthemums
privet damson oak
rake pickaxe spade fork
trowel compost-buckets bird-table
compost heaps bonfires shears