Tree Peony Opening Again

More rain here today, which I'm welcoming. The very cold nights seems to be enabling the blossoms to last longer.

I had a book trawl of Oxfam finding a Seamus Heaney I've not read. In a nearby 2nd hand bookshop I found for £1 the wonderful " Rattle Bag "  a diverse collection of poems edited by Heaney and Ted Hughes to encourage folk to read poetry more.  Here's one from Sylvia Plath : I love the layers of meaning and menace she injects into it.

Mushrooms
Overnight ,very
Whitely, discreetly
Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Aquire the air.

Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us ;
The small grains make room.

Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,

Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,

Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We

Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking

Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us !

We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,

Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies :

We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot's in the door.