Scarlet Runner Rhapsody Villanelle [a variation]

We wait for the storm, constraining our moods,

those unnameable clouds’ inspissation over the hills

while in the darkening valley Scarlet Runner buds.

We have always used ‘the weather’ to shape our forms,

extracting plasma in our star-gazing parallax seasonals,

so we wait for the storm, constraining our moods.

As kids we skirted the dry places and followed

tendrils of ‘Running Postman’ as it delivered redwax seals,

while in the darkening valley Scarlet Runner buds.

And while such a cold-low plant will warm in its seed-memory of flame,

auguries of cellulose and sap, linalool and ocimene, pigment-wink survival,

and so we wait for the storm, restraining our moods.

All these plant connotations of behaviour and words,

all the reforms and plots of restoration held prostrate as squalls

entangle the darkening valley and Scarlet Runner blooms.

These snaps of insight these visages knowing how to reform

and attract, to defy and not deify narratives of quietus and Fall;

we wait for the storm, constraining our moods,

while in the darkening valley scarlet runner broods.