For Colin Hopgood, a good man of Devizes, who has been milkman and Mayor, and tends the allotment by Quakers Walk that gives so much pleasure to so many…
*
‘Tis Spring on the allotments, in the air
The scent of hyacinths, the sense of bees
The sunlight on the cabbages and trees
And sitting in the greenhouse, on his chair
Remembering past summers, and the Fair
The Kenyan heat, the icy Kennet freeze
The smallest seedlings grown into sweet peas
Is Colin, father, lover, milkman, mayor
…
He’ll tell you, if you ask him, where the boat
That sits amongst the marigolds once sat
He’ll show you his banana tree, and bowers
And time and swans will fly, and barges float
Until he calls his dogs, and doffs his hat
And sends you home with vegetables, and flowers
*
© Gail Foster 23rd March 2017
