Tandeming down the Herefordshire lanes …

Tandeming down the Herefordshire lanes,                
push, push, pushing up the hill,
(Can you push a little harder in the back?
Sorry, dreaming, muscles slack!)                       
then, freewheeling down with care and skill,     
– a chance to wriggle round a bit
on where I sit.                                                   
Far views of valleys, and verges pass,
keep your eyes open, – what’s that in the grass?:
Jack-by-the-hedge, and small wild strawberry,
white dead nettle, an early patch of comfrey,
starry cloud of stitchwort, pools of bright red campion,
yellow heads, and clocks in fields – abundant dandelion,
here and there sweet woodruff, and a single stem of spurge,
lots of yellow archangel, and now a hedgerow surge
of hawthorn blossom, soft-petalled, cream;
farmyard aromas, a murmuring stream,
big white stars with garlic smells
– ramsons, mixed with deep bluebells,                 
celandines and cowslips,
vetch and violet,
honesty, and vivid-blue ‘evergreen’ alkanet,
banks of lady’s smock far over there                              
[stop for a photo, or just to stare],                            
wood anemone – will soon be dead,                
but dainty wood sorrel’s grown up instead;
– what a spring for abundant species,
spectrum and variety constantly increases,            
bursting out together in April’s hot weather;                           
‘chiff chaff, chiff chaff’ and other birdsong,
oh, it’s good to be tandeming along!