By Emily Tee
The year 2020 started with a torrential downpour.
Our town was flooded,
even made it onto the six o'clock news.
The TV journalist in her brown knee-length boots
stood in a foot of water
in the middle of Bridge Street,
picked out for the cameras by arc lights.
Local fields became pools, roads became rivers.
Spring arrived in a flurry of overabundance
scattering pink-white fruit blossoms
with a flagrant disregard for the affliction of
lockdown, fragrance summoning big black bees
and fat leaf buds offering a hint of hope
at a time that felt hopeless.
So many goldfinches that year,
soft trilling sound of their tinkling calls
if by chance you missed the yellow flashes
on wing tips or their cheeky red striped faces.
By summer green leaves proliferated
smooth and cool, soothing under our fingers,
inviting us back outdoors and into their shade.
The season chilled, turning toward fall.
Ancient vines that had snaked along
the garden wall groaned under their fruit.
Each gem-like oval had a blush of velvet red
that spread across creamy pale cheeks.
The faint aroma of must and muskiness
held a promise for the rich taste of the juice,
something to be savoured on the tongue
as we headed back into more lockdowns
in that most uncertain winter.
About Emily Tee:
Tee writes poetry and flash fiction. Nature and the environment, as well as writing based on ekphrastic prompts, frequently feature in her work. She's had pieces published online in Free Verse Revolution Lit, The Ekphrastic Review, Visual Verse and Unbroken Journal among other places and in print with Dreich Mag, Poetry Scotland and in The Wee Sparrow Poetry Press's 'Hope is a Group Project' anthology and elsewhere. Emily lives in a rural part of the UK.