Autumn has come to South Africa and all across the countryside, the hills are being readied for wheat, barley and canola. Yesterday, I watched as a field was scorched of the stubble which since November has bristled upon it, the white smoke and black earth a sure sign that the green of winter approaches.
“To a Wild Flower”, previously “Little Evening Lily”, is complete! What began as a single sketch—an ode to my beloved Gladiolus liliaceus in all its incarnations—has blossomed into three separate poems: I. “Lovely Wayside Lily”, II. “There Is No Other Lily . . .” and III. “Wondrous Afrikaner”.
As expected, it took four months to develop the three variations, each dwelling in short and simple lines upon those aspects of the flower that charm me most. I am content that I have poured into the stanzas my naïve appreciation of the flower’s beauty and eagerly await September that I may recite to it my laudations.
Next, I shall develop “The Wind!”, a sketch outlined in November 2018, one of several compositions on the titular theme. Wild flowers, birds, beasts, hills, fields and the wind: these move me to verse! For the moments when they leave me speechless, I write poems bursting with praise.
Forgotten Fields 