Grandmother with Apples

Orchards were an Eden

just beyond the end of our lane –

a temptation for boys with scuffed knees

and memories of last year’s crop

as a daredevil scurry over railings

and a clandestine feast.

Come autumn, pickers turned a blind eye

to our impertinent raids:

what were a few scrumped apples to them?

Fruit trees are generous. Had we known it,

apples are gifts to be offered over fences.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips 

Independence Day

A grounded constellation in the distance

I’d like to think is your city –

but threaded onto radio beams

we’re coming in to land

in another country.

Not that anything’s far in time and space.

Crossing another decided border,

I’m handing over my passport with one hand,

texting news of arrival with another –

 then watching plimsolled shoes

measuring out paces along the yellow pavements.

In this swirl of whistles and vuvuzelas,

plash of fountains and shrieks from the tramlines,

I’m making for what I know,

I’m making for somewhere

which feels like home,

which doesn’t feel like a missed target.

20 September is independence day in Bulgaria - the anniversary of the 'de jure' declaration of independence from the Ottoman Empire in Veliko Turnovo in 1908.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips 

Wildflowers

Beyond the orchard and plain church,

escaping some fury of my own invention,

I’d be crossing the road to the railway station

to the edge of a wide, familiar view:

uncut wheatfield extending to stands

of remnant Victorian planting –

oaks and cedars which at one time lined

the driveway of those misnamed Towers.

How to decipher mechanised pastoral

under Luton Airport flight paths

might well have proved distraction –

in another emptying village, pale blues

and yellows in an overgrown courtyard

are plants which, had I given attention

to what was growing among the cornstalks

I might have been able to name.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips 

For 6 September

As the sudden dusk mellows stone distances,

crowds shuffle down, find spaces to regroup

below the citadel on this poised thoroughfare.

We’ve been walking all afternoon

through suburbs and past the blue house

where that war artist lived – in the heat

our son complains, is demanding a drink.

The crowds are a memory from this time last year,

how they gathered into this space,

and if I listen, I’m sure to hear them again –

those exultant whispers, that ripple

at the furthest edge of history that we’ve reached. 

6 September is a national holiday in Bulgaria and marks the anniversary of the unification of the northern and southern parts of the country in 1885.

Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips