The Merrywinkle Grove

1.

A foxbee trots in a grove, flower-to-flower,
her tail flailing side-to-side as her wings buzz to-and-fro
Ere darkness she returns to her burrow,
a small furrow, amidst Merrywinkle Grove,
of lush greens and violets against white snow.
A warm hearth in her heart
beats rhythmically to the thrum of the Earth,
waking with a soft glow.
She buzzes ere break of dawn
to visit the lawn unkempt and unowned
in the little farm brazen and forlorn.
In cups of merrywinkle in thickets of pinthorn,
spikelets of ashybrush and bristlecorn,
vines of contorted forms,
Step-by-step, on nimble feet,
she takes a sip, her wings beat,
oh, what fate, in has crept,
of cold sprinkled hate.

2.

A fire-tailed rat offers petals to greet,

and caches merrywinkle seeds to eat,

ten feet ‘neath the peat.

When the winds blow cold,

with cotton his burrow he’d mould,

and sleep on his bed of leaves in autumn breeze.

He wakes early at daybreak,

with the first summer shake,

his blazing tail twitching at the summer’s gale,

he inhales;

And as he peers out into the Bubblelake,

he finds it riddled with ashen flakes,

the lake now a mire with a sooty haze.

Tumbling down the ashen alleyway,

by the spiky residues of bristlecorn hay,

he runs from the crackling affray.

By the waters once bubbling from the lake,

the fire, oh fire, his namesake,

his home it has made him forsake.

3.

A cherubicbird with azure-prismatic plumage

whistles his arrival with the first drizzle

as merrywinkle comes to fruitage.

Every morn he will sing,

a tree-stump his perch,

as she’d dance on her wing

till the sun sank behind the old birch.

Every spring they will build a nest

under merrywinkle’s breast

and fill it with goosefeather and silken gossamer;

And on leafworms and seedweevils

they will fill their chicks,

till the grove is freed of an herbivorous upheaval.

That spring they came, they nested,

and they found the earth infested,

no worm nor weevil but of something evil.

His whistle was heard, her dance observed,

but the eggs did not form,

their hatchlings gone with the last worm.

4.

A rainbow treesnake glides at daybreak

exploring the vivid shapes

of contorted vines and branching treescapes.

Guided by his tongue

he has been measuring the distance

between two tree trunks feet-by-feet,

from root to tip.

He has seen saplings become kings,

seeds with wings,

merrywinkle springs,

those fairy rings and frogs that sing,

Ere end of summer the ground quakes

as the distance between trees gapes

and the close-knit snake-ties breaks.

From the old birch

he watches the trees creak and move,

and break and groan,

and crack and fall to the ground.

Now the trees are gone,

he has lost his home,

with naught left to measure but bristlecorn,

he curls up all alone.

5.

A peacock perch flashes the purple-azures of his pectorals

impressing his lovers by leaping out of the spring waters.

Along the pebbled edge,

by the shadows of the merrywinkle hedge,

a school of perches in summer would fledge.

Long before being born

their parents built nests of bubbles

in the shallows warm,

shining fair against amber pebbles.

Of merrywinkle hues the lake shimmers,

yellow for spring, blue for summer,

red for autumn and white for winter.

Except one day it turned all green,

with no sun to be seen

the perches were grieved,

for the lake started to recede;

A grime of formless mass

choked the Bubblelake’s process,

with the lake starting to regress,

the perches suffered en masse.

6.

A merrywinkle shoot in the dirt took root,

when all was young and the waters absolute,

there it grew an offshoot.

As it grew and grew

with the trees through and through,

violet flowers it donned,

thus, Merrywinkle Grove formed.

A bee would sip on its nectars,

a rat cache its seeds,

a bird ate up all the caterpillars,

a snake adorned its deeds.

From the lake it would take

only that it could return,

in its shade the fishes made

nurseries for perchlings to run.

Then a forlorn farm came by the grove,

They’d gnaw and plunder and plough,

and let thickets of spiny weeds grow.

They shunned the bees, they cut the trees,

they poisoned the seeds, in the waters they fished

and the last of merrywinkle shriveled and ceased.