There is at once a sense of gentle celebration and elegy in Sheila Templeton’s poem about the butterfly-attracting shrub of high summer. The piece comes from Gaitherin, her impressive recent collection in English and Scots (Red Squirrel Press, £10).
PURPLE LIKE BORAGE
I slipped out after the rain stopped
to walk by the river. Along its bank
the bushes tall, green-thickened,
arching a cathedral in the drenched air.
~
And blossom, purple tasseled pennants
smelling of faint honeysuckle.
The name lost.
~
But I remember you loved it,
waited every year for its long plumes to open,
waited for the butterflies.
~
Borage? No, that’s blue.
And borage is for bees. Its furry grey-green leaves
belong in frosted glasses on a summer table.
~
Why didn’t you garden anymore?
You used to love it so.
~
And this was your favourite.
You grew it by the gate - not skyward
like these – but pruned, tended, fat -
confettied in butterflies, bursting with life.
~
All gone now.
~
Buddleia. Budd-le-ia.
~
Like a prayer lost on the wind.
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