Thriving Diversity by Geoff Marshall
One of those warm Septembers with Autumn light tapping
its fingertips on the fading skein of Summer.
Yesterday,
on the pebbled path a green backed lizard scurried from
shadow to shade drawing a warm moment to its brief pulse,
disappearing into a crevice at first footfall. By the fence
Wild Mustard spread in a chaos of yellow on green. On the ridge
Viper’s-bugloss stands sentry. A Hummingbird Hawk-moth flew jig jag
to the ‘kiss-me-quick’ Red Valerian amid the crisp brittle sunburnt grasses.
Along the path an artist sketched, her hand lightly striking in mirrored lines.
Nearby a young girl skipped, a boy kicked a stone. Thriving diversity
the Centre’s pamphlet says. Outside a woman in a summer dress
walked past Herb-Robert, the low mat of the ‘wandering sailor’
and the white bonnets of ‘maids of a market’, before driving home
past the storage fields and chemical factory of the Harbour Road.
