The Winter Outing of the Woolhope Naturalists Field Club, December 1870
The ladies of the party are helped over the stile
by whiskered botanists fond of a well turned ankle.
Miss Taylor draws a notebook from her beaded reticule
and writes “The bunch of mistletoe was so large
that it could be exceedingly well seen from the lane.”
The Reverend Johnson climbs the ladder
“placed with thoughtful consideration” amid banter
from the men about Druids, golden sickles
and garlanded white yearling bulls.
The Reverend drops the felted sticky bundle
and “small sprays of the heaven born plant
unpolluted by any touch of earth” are given out
to “all the ladies present”. Miss Taylor holds
the wishbone sprig with its smeary fruit.
Her whalebone stays are biting, her chilblains
ache, her hem is iced with mud. She smiles
(Mama says she must always smile).
In the dwindling light the botanists are advancing.
Lydia Macpherson
thursday night on the corner of grange road
cambridge
the streets here are slippery with leaves.
a cyclist struggles to stop, skidding
the bicycle carefully across the pavement
until the momentum ceases. a pedestrian
glares across his shoulder as he sidesteps
and says you shouldn't cycle on the pavement,
you know. it's bloody dangerous. especially
in this weather. especially at night. and where
are your fucking lights, asshole!
i tip my umbrella at a forty degree angle to get rid
of some water and watch the cyclist put up
a middle finger in the direction
of the abusive accuser: it stands out tall
in the flush of fluorescence from the street lamp,
a fat little lightning conductor sucking at the sky.
but the young man with the civic sensibilities has stalked off
towards the next cup of light without looking back
again. bloody cyclists fucking morons asshole.
it rains harder and there is a new sound – i think
i can hear the dull and soggy creak of leaves
shatter slightly under the weight of each hit.
i think i can hear the drops enter the river, driven
deep into the mystery-green flesh of the cam.
and moss grow. i think i can hear moss grow.
on the periphery of all this the cyclist has dismounted,
and is now pushing the bicycle warily across a shiny
film of winter debris towards the corner of grange road.
marcelle olivier
*Lydia Macpherson was born and brought up in the Yorkshire Pennines.
She now lives near Cambridge. She has an MA in Creative Writing from
Royal Holloway University of London. Her work has been published in
various magazines.
*marcelle olivier is a South African-born writer and archaeologist
living in India. You can read more of her poetry in, amongst
others, Oxford Poetry, New Contrast, and Carapace
