From our bedroom window I can almost touch

the laburnum’s tresses of yellow blooms.

The tree was here before we moved in

fifty years ago. Most years it has fountained

flowers – which, from a distance, seem golden.

A quarter century is the likely span

of a laburnum. Though this tree is on

borrowed time bees congregate regardless.

Perhaps being featured in one of my poems

has encouraged its longevity:

‘…By our side gate the old laburnum – whose wood,

in time, may make a chanter or a flute –

is in bloom. I look up through its branches.

There is a little azure and smidgens

of green – and droplets, ringlets, links, chains

of cascading yellow, a torrent of gold….’

I am long beyond my allotted span

of the psalmist’s ‘three score years and ten’,

and take note of her/his admonition:

‘…if by reason of strength they be fourscore years,

yet is their strength labour and sorrow;

for it is soon cut off, and we fly away’.

I shall be good enough only for ashes

the wind might scatter. This tree, however,

might make music.

Note: the poem mentioned above is AN AFTERNOON IN MAY.