Five photos: child in the garden
1.
Bonfire charcoal
In a jam jar of
Rainwater
With dandelion leaves:
Magic potion.
2.
The hot dry smell of
Garden flints clashed
Together prehistorically;
Soft yellow brick powder
Falls from an old nail turned
In the house wall.
3.
Overhead :
Lilies of the valley
With huge white bells,
Below:
Tank battle of armoured
Woodlice, grey-purple,
And an arching
Orange centipede.
4.
Circular hollyhock seedheads
Peeled apart into
Small serrated hooks,
Vertical plantain seeds
Fountained off
With raking finger nails.
5.
Do red ants hurt?
They stain the path
Where I stamped
On them. But now
I hear them screaming.
Ruth Aylett teaches computing at Heriot-Watt University. She is also a prize-winning poet and writer, whose work has appeared in New Writing Scotland; Doire Press, Textualities; Estuary – a confluence of Art and Poetry; Ink, Sweat and Tears and elsewhere. She has read as a Shore Poets New Poet and at many Inky Fingers events. Read more about her work here.