An Avowal

Bluebell at the wayside
nodding your assent
to summer, and summer’s end;
nodding, on your slender stem

your undemurring yes
to the small role life
offers you — a few weeks
seasoning the hill-foot grasses

with shakes of blue…
You accept, and acquiesce
thereby, to any wind,
though the winds tease:

‘Flower,’ they ask —
’d’you want to be noticed?’
Yes, yes, noticed!
‘Or rather left alone?’ Yes,

left perfectly alone! ‘Flower,’
they whisper, ’d’you love
the breeze that wantons
the whole earth round

breathing its sweet proposals,
but does not love you?’
— then laugh when your blue
head nods: I do. I do.

Kathleen Jamie a poet and a writer of non-fiction. Her reviews and occasional writings have appeared in such journals as The Guardian, the London Review of Books and Orion. Jamie has also written for BBC Radio 3 and 4. Her poems have appeared on the Underground systems of London, New York and Shanghai, and one of her poems was recently chosen by the public to be carved on a huge wooden beam on the national monument at Bannockburn.