Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle,
All through the meadows the horses and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as thick as driving rain;
And ever again, in the wink of an eye,
Painted stations whistle by.
Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,
All by himself and gathering brambles;
Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;
And there is the green for stringing the daisies!
Here is a cart run away in the road
Lumping along with man and load;
And here is a mill and there is a river:
Each a glimpse and gone for ever!
Robert Louis Stevenson, (1850 – 1894)
from A Child’s Garden of Verses.
If anyone knows how to get rid of rogue bramble, please tell
me. Meanwhile, I’ll keep snipping it at ground level.
They will be back soon. Pale green thorny stalks as thick
as rhubarb will conquer the concrete plinth at the base of the fence panels to
invade my garden. I call it a garden, but it is just a big yard with a couple
of raised beds and a few plant pots. It is enough for me to look after and the spring
flowers are pretty at the moment. I can sit out to read on a nice day, so it
will do, apart from the horrid bramble.
A bramble bush – Rubus fruticosus – must be indestructible.
I’ve done all sorts of things, but the roots are deep, beneath the fencing,
which will be staying put.
It began next door, many years ago. The two ladies,
mother and daughter, had a beautiful back garden. Borders were stuffed with
roses and every bedding plant in summer. They were always out there, tending to
the blooms and sweeping the path. At the far end, where some shrubs grew taller
than the fence to offer privacy from the alley, the bramble crept in and took
root. The ladies made it welcome and enjoyed the blackberries. One would go out
with a dish to collect the ripe ones, but the dish returned indoors empty. The
harvest eaten as fast as it was picked. Time marched on. The ladies had gone. The
house was sold to property developers. The original building was ruined in the
interests of modernising, but that’s another story. That beautiful, lovingly
cared for garden was dug up and disposed of, replaced by stone chips. One thing
survived.
Next door is occupied. The back garden is ‘easy care’, like
mine, but they don’t have any plants. Not even bramble.
Two poems, one from Robert Louis Stevenson, a favourite from
childhood, and Sylvia Plath, a recent interest.
Blackberrying
Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but
blackberries,
Blackberries on either side, though on the right mainly,
A blackberry alley, going down in hooks, and a sea
Somewhere at the end of it, heaving.
Blackberries
Big as the ball of my thumb, and dumb as eyes
Ebon in the hedges, fat
With blue-red juices.
These they squander on my fingers.
I had not asked for such a blood sisterhood; they must
love me.
They accommodate themselves to my milkbottle, flattening
their sides.
Overhead go the choughs in black, cacophonous flocks –
Bits of burnt paper wheeling in a blown sky.
Theirs is the only voice, protesting, protesting.
I do not think the sea will appear at all.
The high, green meadows are glowing, as if lit from
within.
I come to one bush of berries so ripe it is a bush of
flies,
Hanging their blue-green bellies and their wing panes in
a Chinese screen.
The honey-feast of the berries has stunned them; they
believe in heaven.
One more hook, and the berries and bushes end.
The only thing to come now is the sea.
From between two hills a sudden wind funnels at me,
Slapping its phantom laundry in my face.
These hills are too green and sweet to have tasted salt.
I follow the sheep path between them.
A last hook brings me
To the hills’ northern face, and the face is orange rock
That looks out on nothing, nothing but a great space
Of white and pewter lights, and din like silversmiths
Beating and beating at an intractable metal.
Sylvia Plath (1932
– 1963)
