Thriving Diversity by Geoff Marshall

One of those warm Septembers with Autumn light tapping

its fingertips on the fading skein of Summer.

Yesterday,

on the pebbled path a green backed lizard scurried from

shadow to shade drawing a warm moment to its brief pulse,

disappearing into a crevice at first footfall. By the fence

Wild Mustard spread in a chaos of yellow on green. On the ridge

Viper’s-bugloss stands sentry. A Hummingbird Hawk-moth flew jig jag

to the ‘kiss-me-quick’ Red Valerian amid the crisp brittle sunburnt grasses.

Along the path an artist sketched, her hand lightly striking in mirrored lines.

Nearby a young girl skipped, a boy kicked a stone. Thriving diversity

the Centre’s pamphlet says. Outside a woman in a summer dress

walked past Herb-Robert, the low mat of the ‘wandering sailor’

and the white bonnets of ‘maids of a market’, before driving home

past the storage fields and chemical factory of the Harbour Road.