Ling of the Greenway purpling the patio haze
Pass the trellis, come in from the birdsong:
There’s always an arm to help us up the stairs
there’s always a familiar face

Gemma and Jackie – mother and daughter
chatter round a barfull of regulars
touring the creaking boards like home
roams Shorebur’s dozing summer shoulders

Hushing screens of football and racing
a jolly gent in a berry-toned suit
brings presents down to kids waiting,
eager in the quiet light of evening

His yawn catches round the minty bar
like brick dust and chalk for scoring darts.
grass-stains on the Veracity kids
grass-stains on the football lot

Grass-stains on the people from the Study Centre, watching
the fruities whirr for brickmakers’ rusty fingers.
Schol’s lads’ green their thumbs by tending
the orchids flush in the corner

With brookwater trickling like cellar-cool nectar
a glade in the tables must have been
for dancing through the weekend’s bands or
a pond in the week for fishing from ceiling beams

Orange paint and pollen round the pool table
sun sets behind the strawberry pickers potting
shiny red and yellow drops that
roll the felty lawn like fruited wagons.

Grass for staining, thumbs for greening
a sign by the door reads: to the garden
hands are for giving and bricks are for winter
when the pond was for skating, some time ago.

By Rhys Lawrence