What was the time by St. Patrick’s Stream
when light on the contours of a bluebell wood
was perfect for Country Life? Your unassuming eye
was the editor’s choice for a full half-page.
Grasses were high with the pollen count;
wasps hovered over tin cans and a stray canoe
caught in the rushes where the stream meandered.
Now it’s left to others to seek new flowers:
the chestnut tree that told you the season.
Go to St. Patrick’s Stream for the Monarch,
Plain Tiger, Bath White: new generations
of little bittern, redstart and red kite
bearing messages from anonymous others
of all they carried through years in flight.
Wilderspool Causeway 