Blueprint

Bulbs rustle in paper bags,

pale corns, rhizomes, tubers

to breathe new life into a barren corporate patch.

Husks, tipped with green shoots,

become bold beauties under spring’s driving force.

I plant the basal-plated buds,

tendril rooted and tunic-scaled bodies,                             

in spirals beneath three gleaming Silver Birch,

mirrored a thousand times in ghostly office panes,

where masked-reflected faces, tap out quietly desperate times.

My soil-creased palms

And mud-sculpted fingernails, dig calmly

warmed by the heat of labour,

earthing nature’s blueprints in dull December.

Curious smokers shiver, smile and watch, their breaths pluming over coffee.

Musk-scented snowdrops, narcissus and daffodils

mark abundance and fertility, between ice-rimed January and Ides of March.

Heady hyacinth, deadly, Lily-of-the-Valley and cyclamen, to banish sorrows,

encircle trees with sumptuous tulips and citrusy freesias, in my hope

weary workers linger, as black-boughed leaves unfurl.

These bulbs contain an ancient forward plan,

lasting long after we’ve driven ourselves into the dark ether.