For the love of a fellside
after The Lost Garden of Loughrigg
– Penn Allen
Imagine a spring day drawing out possibilities
the newness of life, sisters in long skirts digging
tangled ground, breaking bones and loam wild
with bracken and rock on this south facing slope.
Then, the building of an enclosure to protect plants
from deer and sheep. Long ago this affair
before my mother walked me up a sweeping track
to be wrapped in scented blooms nurtured from seedlings –
cuttings – discoveries posted from wildest China:
Primula Purdomii for stars, Gentian for sky
Viburnum for fragrance – treasures arriving each week
in packages – perennials for sun, for shade to be planted
in harmony. A garden with a view to the Langdale Pikes
and air once breathed never left your lungs
and the cool damp mist rising from the River Brathay
in mornings reluctant to let go the night. All this
what it was to be here, the guardians waking each day
to seven acres of crag knowing your hands and heart
belong to this patch of earth.
Kerry Darbishire lives remotely in Cumbria, a landscape that inspires most of her poems. She has collections and pamphlets published and many poems have appeared in anthologies and magazines. Her latest pamphlet, River Talk is with Hedgehog Press.