“Ask the Fuchsias”

Out of the ruined houses
nettles leap barking like wolves,
defensive and territorial,
full of contained aggression.

The ash trees sigh and whisper quietly;
new comers they,
a green roof rising from the roofless parlour.

People lived here and left the year I was born.
They took their livestock and their roof with them.

The ash trees are too young to remember.
They know nothing of Death yet.
They could ask the fuchsias: they know.

© mike absalom