ailsaandlisa

By: ailsaandlisa

Jul 25 2014

Tags: Tegg's Nose

Category: free verse, poem

4 Comments

The path to the Library was lined with bilberries
and so they had to stop, rummage in a rucksack
for a bag, collect the soft blue beads.
Their heads and necks got hot in the sun.

Between thumb and forefinger she turned
a single berry, slowly, said it could be a planet
where it’s always night. He said it was the egg
of a giant mutant spider.

They picked till fingers and lips were purple,
planned pancakes, muffins, pie.
He remembered a delicious tart in Paris,
and that the French for bilberry is la myrtille.

She recalled a breakfast in New York
but decided not to mention it.

__________________________________

The seventh poem written by Ailsa Holland as Poet in Residence 2014 at Tegg’s Nose Country Park, Cheshire. Photo by Ailsa Holland.