Conversation by a bougainvillea

‘Oh yes. I admit it. You are right.’

‘You don’t have a leg to stand on, amigo mío.’

‘Yes, I know. I know.

This bougainvillea is afire with purple,

The colour of the Mediterranean,

As the old gardener said.

The bushes flame with colour,

Bright and strong.

And it is fine, all very fine.

The hibiscus blows its trumpets,

Huge and red,

Till they fall as night falls.

The sky is cloudless,

Blue, all blue, all day.

But what would I give

For a shy violet,

For one, just one,

“By a mossy stone,

Half hidden from the eye.”

Or for the quiet beauty

Of the primroses in the hedgerow

As if bouquets were planted there.

Or the brave cowslip,

Small and fragile in the wind,

That blows on the meadows in Somerset,

In April when the fresh showers come

To the distant call of the cuckoo.

‘Well, if you bring an English spring

Into the question,

That is hitting below the belt.’

‘If I bring in an English spring,

There is no contest.

Admit it now!’

Poem every Monday