Bees and Mulberries

Ground plan of Lettsom's Villa, Grove Hill, where the Mulberries still bloom

Bees and Mulberries

Lettsom made his choices by the medicine of plants.
Thumbing the earth
         through greening fingers,
Sensing things, things
Obscure to others, bound
(as he was) to the mud of Southwark
     - temples, timber, wood -
And look! Ships carried in on names,
   Men swinging in hammocks:
Words dancing on the Estuary
Of London, through rolls of land
to carry his constant dreaming,
rumbling since through 3,100 seasons
 - blues, reds, blushes -
Each year similarly breathing,
well, we saw a fair few things too:
demolition, blitzes
heart break, shamanic forms of healing, through
Flurries of farewells (bees coming and going
From season to season)
While we ask ourselves - almost in passing -
       'what do these Mulberries
know - '
             of time pawing through itself,
Or of history repeating; there are rocks in the soul
Of the earth that care nothing for our surface-shaping
Feelings. A cold comfort in London; Lettsom was a see-er.
Lettsom made his choices by the medicine of plants.





words by
Penny Newell


Links to information on Lettsom's Villa, Grove Hill, built 1792 (demolished 1890)

http://www.dkh.org.uk/grove-hill-in-poetry/

http://www.southlondonguide.co.uk/camberwell/history.htm

http://lettsomgardens.org.uk/history.html

http://www.dkh.org.uk/dr-lettsoms-house/

http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/e-w-edward-wedlake-brayley/a-topographical-history-of-surrey-volume-3-yar/page-3-a-topographical-history-of-surrey-volume-3-yar.shtml