Wild Lupins

Spires of wild lupins grace the slopes.
Curved blooms in every hue of blue
Cupped by a darker shell
Rise in two-toned elegance
Above the coarse tussocks
Of the native grass.
Across the dun plain
Already parched with summer’s dry
The lupins stir the English soul.
Not the decorous towers
Remembered from suburban gardens
But ecstatic in the wilderness.

They spread their alien creed.

The Long White Cloud, poems from Aotearoa