Geraniums splash whitewashed cottages
in giddy red under the splay of early morning light,
and a jumble of raspberry brambles
garlands the knobby cobblestone roadside girdle.
Bursts of lavender rhododendron
bejewel glades of dappled apple-green,
while meadows patched with brilliant gorse
blanket the languid afternoon.
Clover and heather fling their pungent scents,
cling wild afresh moldering ancient slopes,
and rose boughs tumble down innumerable
walls of crumbling memorial ruin.
A fusion of blooms lingers in the gloaming,
a plump mothering scent calling me home
across the gathering skirted darkness
of twilight shimmering on the Irish Sea.
published by Illinois State Poetry Society Online
©2007 Bonnie Manion