Second poem from long ago, in memoriam Mhairi

By Tracy

Outside the glasshouse

I lose you for a moment and then catch sight:

crouched under twin camellias you approach

with the lens as one might

a timid animal,

allowing them soul.

I hold back: double pink, double red,

such richness best at a distance

or I am swamped

unless it’s instinct

tells me not to intrude

between you and the beauty

of your own response.

Starvation for months

and now this glut of colour

almost insulting in its abundance.

Not all at once

but bud by snub bud they unloose

their vivacity, raised cups

we’d slake our hurts at

if we could only trust

they’d last – longevity

and faithfulness, the books says

so you store an image

to paint them from

like tracing and retracing

a lover’s name.

                     — Tracy Ryan

All these photos were taken by Mhairi in the Cambridge Botanical Gardens, which gave me the central idea for the book Hothouse, from which the poems are themselves taken.