No one living knows
who planted them,
dug the first clump
from a cottage garden.
A marker in the absence of a headstone.
Did become a custom
for the poor, source
of the snowy river flowing
round the ruined church?
Left to themselves they have cross-bred.
Unmindful of species,
green spots and splashes
stripes and picots paint
the muddle of white petals.
Each one a February candle for a buried soul.
Diane Jackman’s poetry has appeared in The Rialto, snakeskin, optimum, Elbow Room, Spillway, small press anthologies, and won several competitions. She runs a small poetry group in The Brecks, a fascinating sandy heath landscape regarded as England's desert.
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