Day 13

In the gardens at Sintra


A bird trying to pull out moss

From the cracks in the folly wall

So its head is hidden

Isn't singing, is busy. Here, a peacock,

Its feathers petrol on water


Actually, for a birthday present 

I would like you to have planted 

this forest a century ago

So now I can walk among pines

The air saturated with the scent 


It is important that water

Can speak as a spring from the soil

And trace itself over fern and rock

Until it pools enough to think

Darting neurons of memory-


Tiny grey fish. Lilac blossom,

Lilac colour, my app for recognition

Breaks. No scent but ozone

We have hours yet to walk the gardens

No path is accidental


From the folly of the palace balcony, 

hardly pretend being queen

There is a room with nothing but pink

And a casement open 

where the mountain shoulders in


Green and exercised with muscle,

saying here I am this is a landscape

While the faint blue line says nothing

And doesn't need to, for the sea

Is always familiar, even if seldom to itself 


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