The conspiracy of ivy

By the field's edge we grew
Long time undisturbed
Edged by ploughing
Observed the breaking clods
Long time looked over
A distant edged distance
Watched the sowing
The reaping
The ploughing
The sowing
And all the time
About our trunks
Grew a deeper green
Than we'd ever seen
Creeping up
Stealthily,
Slowly,
Slowly,
Suffocating.

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Poem VII from the collection
An ear to the earth

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A butterfly alights on a leaf

Why do you copy in our dead colours
When we struggle so hard for life
Even last year's leaves still wave and rattle
Yes, even we saw the winter through.

How easily you melt into our surroundings
Sunning your wings just long enough
To alert us here of the dangers there...
Just the thought of it now makes us all shudder.

from An ear to the earth
VI

The waking sensations of brackens and long grasses

Gaps appear when dark descends,
When the nighly sun is up,
Pushed between up brackens and long grasses.

Tramping on, me
Snuffling for seeds and berries.

We sleep soundly, undisturbed.
We rise up from earthly-dark earth
And simply unfurl each frond.

Sometimes a marking passing
Remains, me scenting soft earth.

Undisturbed, but for waking sensations
Of a not-seen having brushed against
Our stalks, caressingly.

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from An ear to the earth III