Evergreen
evergreen
/ˈɛvəˌɡriːn/
adjective
relating to or denoting a plant that retains green leaves throughout the year.
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As an Australian living in England, being in the sun for the first genuinely warm days of spring is like greeting an old friend after years apart. Anyone who knows me knows how intimate my relationship is with the sun; throughout my life i’ve been compared to a plant on many occasions. At McDougall drive Tom would constantly refer to me as a human autotroph as i chased the sunlight around our living room, and Kiara late last year in ‘The boy who makes it feel like tomorrow’ asked “Do his leaves fall in April?”. I’ve read that poem so many times that perhaps it was inevitable when I went to write next I did so from the perspective of that tree. This poem is an extension of her metaphor, and if I’m the tree, then I think I found the sun.
This past month has been one of the better ones of my life, I would love nothing more than to freeze time and live it over and over. Winter finally fell and with it came an effervescent sunshine, I spent my birthday in Bellagio, house sat in a literal mansion overlooking the Thames, and I acquired a job that is going to completely change the trajectory of my professional career. And yet very few of the words below relate to any of those genuinely significant events. All of them eclipsed by meeting someone who makes me feel the same way the sun does through spring. I’d be fine with another 12 months of winter if it meant I got to spend it with her, lying on my bed, looking out at the river, trading fits of laughter for the occasional kiss.
It’s going to be a bizarre new reality of living abroad I hadn’t previously considered that someone I really care for won’t have met so many people I already do. So, while you won’t meet her for quite some time, you can read my silly little poems, and for now that will have to do.
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Evergreen
I will remain, always
in this month of May
When the weather warms,
summer dawns,
and forever’s not so far away
Hither to my door,
with that smile I adore, the sun
has come once more
And with her what a feeling,
photosynthesising,
burning, peeling
Inevitable be it may
the seasons are to change,
the deciduous brown and fall.
But no autumnal bloom,
nor a winter gloom, will
wither us at all
For if she stays
I will remain, always
in this month of May
When all the trees
still have their leaves,
and forever's evergreen
