Exercise by Rose France

It was like looking back
To see a stretch of barren land.
Brackish, and briny smelling,
Almost featureless, dotted
With tough clumps of rushes:
Sharp, with a spongy core; the type
That grow near water.

Perching over it, on higher ground,
An empty house without a roof,
Its wall coddling a bed of nettles,
Its cold hearth home to huddled sheep.

And far behind that, on the other side,
A green slope bright with yellow flowers,
With blue flowers and white flowers,
Lit by the sun, and trembling in the wind.

© Rose France 2014