Larches, late April

Today I looked up along the ridge

and the larches were green,

solid forms, no longer impressions

or yesterday’s haze on see-through branches.

Pale orange has become vivid chartreuse,

incongruous with the just budding landscape,

only blushing viridescent on still-rouged sticks.

Under gorse and hawthorn thickets

in scattered shade of larger trees

congregate masses of shiny bluebell leaves

and ferns with leading fronds half-unfurled.

Secret places still untouched by bracken’s overtake

crisscrossed with fallen branches and boulders

harbouring wildflowers and micro clearings within.

Low stone walls emerge from the ground

here and there, footings from long forgotten

dwelling places, traces of past lives

now resting shelters for deer.