Coming Winter

The ungainly King Maples in the back yard have no modesty (nor common sense I might add). Every night is 10 degrees colder, and we are so close to November I can smell the snow, yet the silly trees are stripping down to their skivvies as we speak. One of the maples wears nothing but 3 purple leaves and a flying disc. (Stuck there since last July) The cherries are prudish though; every leaf is yellow and shrivelled but they won't let go until the January gales start. The roses are down right cheeky (who'd expect any different, mine are a pair of old harlots anyway, blushing and blooming from June to October...they'd put out for anyone those two) They've got nothing but their bright red hips on, swaying and bouncing with the slightest breeze, like a bush full of perfect nipples saying "C'mon and get it cause I know you want it!" And in February, the Bohemian waxwing swoop in and have their way, all-ways with my old bushes.

Soon the only flowers in the garden will be my children and their entourage of brightly coloured bundles, all giggles and squeals. Kaliedoscopic sumo wrestlers making forts, blockades, hockey rinks and angels in the polar belt of Princess Avenue. As they struggle, bums and elbows, out of their celestial relief, they will not think of the green that sleeps beneath them. My children, with their bright faces skyward, will exist only in the snow bank. Antartica. Everest. A distant moon.

And overhead the Bohemian Waxwing gather.