It sounds like a bird,
but is a species of geranium
hidden among the grass,
unless you know where to look,
easily stepped on by careless
hikers or cattle, maybe eaten
by those cattle to flavour
their milk, or plucked by
hikers to grace a buttonhole
or lifted by teenage lovers.
The sort of flower found
pressed into books or onto
love letters by men who knew
this was as close as they would
get to laying down in a field
with the woman they wrote to,
a flower whose colour sent
out a delicate signal, whose
scent, while it lasted, meant
possibilities, or hopes deferred.
Whether the hikers called it
Geranium Praetense, or our
youngest lovers knew it as
Field Geranium, anyone
who saw & valued its violet
flowers for colour, scent,
or associations, had their
day brightened, a spring
put in their step or a hope
put into their hearts.
Reprinted by kind permission of the author from In My Dreams, Again (Penniless Press 2017).