Bradfield Woods, in the Spring Copyright © Victor Weston 2011

It is an exceptional day
gentle warm Spring sunshine
new green leaf marvellously apparelling the trees
winter’s dark wet mud and bitter cold has gone
today light floods down with new promise

Approaching these woods past blackthorn in bloom
and the tall tower of Bradfield church
full of anticipation to see this years’s Spring flower fest
the sensational spreading carpeting
of the woodland floor ...

These wood anemones, so dainty and white
the violets blue, celendines gold,
euphorbia and the birdsong
the dappled light through the trees
the wild cherry blossom against the blue vault of heaven

There are black caps, primroses, and butterflies emerging,
bumblebees and massive spread of wood anemonies
seeming magical, mysterious among the coppiced hazel
bluebells are coming out - how exciting the threshold of Spring
and, crossing the fresh dawn air, the scent of a fox

The pole barn’s tidy, the cut wood is neatly stacked
Peter the “woodwose” Warden is meticulous,
oxlips in flower, past a nightingale study area
a tall tree castes a long shadow across the path
the dormice surely must have woken from hibernation

like walking in an elphin paradise, into the additional woodland
a deer scuttles away further down the path and vanishes
a majestic cock pheasant runs to hide
a woodpecker’s drilling noise is heard
I happen across another “woodwose” (wuduwasa) Steve with a companion

who is this creature - Queen Mab?
so unexpected, so beautiful
above all the celebration of Spring’s new green
or a hallucination
at the fields’ edge?