FINISHING THE PRUNING The old rosemary bush is lighter now. I scan it to check for spindly twigs that have escaped my stern and sculpting secateurs. Nip. Snip. Oops! A little twig holds up a spray of needle-leaves and a pale blue flower or two. They gaze

FINISHING THE PRUNING

The old rosemary bush
is lighter now. I scan it
to check for spindly twigs
that have escaped
my stern and sculpting secateurs.

Nip. Snip. Oops! A little twig
holds up a spray of needle-leaves
and a pale blue flower or two.
They gaze at me accusingly.
I decide on rosemary-scented dinner.
Again? sighs the long-suffering bush.

Now before I snip a twig
I use my eye to follow
carefully each gnarly branch
through the interlacing loops
of down and up and round and through
it’s danced to find its space
and share of sun and light and warmth
to magic the miracle of flowers.

I trace the years of slo-mo dancing
this multi-limbed and ordinary bush
has performed while we
have lived our human lives
at different speeds beside it.

Bonsai now seems to me
just a still photo taken
from the long and subtle dance of life
that plant and sun and time
perform each day they live,
unseen by human eyes.

How elephantine slow we must seem
to flitting humming-birds
and insects on their single day’s life
of mating and dancing in the sun.