Mum's in the house and gossiping in Guernsey French with Gran
The water from the well is sweeter than I'll ever taste again
Around the back I sit and bask, in dripping July sun
Listening to the gorse pods, popping one by one.
I worry over Grammar school, and Linda's thoughts of me
The world is going crazy, all except when I can be
Where cloudlets smile, where bees buzz by, where joyful linnets sing
Where hay scent drifts in hot, dry air, where dry, brown gorse pods ping
It's Saturday, as usual Grandpa is "Au Travail "
And Mum and Gran are sitting on the old Green Bed as I
Am perched upon the granite steps behind the little cot
Absorbing sunshine, listening to the gorse go "pop-pop-pop"
The old Green Lane meanders up the verdant valley side
I see the meadows full of fragrant flowers, sweet and wild.
The skylark bursts his heart out, with a peerless, joyful song
Just asking how could anything in God's good world be wrong?
In Pleinmont's countryside we've found the everflowing cup
Gold flowers fade and leathern pods go pop....pop....pop.
Today I sit in Sussex fields, but Guernsey fills my mind
I listen to the popping gorse, evoking childhood times.
When Saturdays we'd ride our bikes or catch the old Grey Bus
For Torteval was always drawing back the likes of us
With roots deep in those valleys and those high cliffs by the sea
Where July gorse still pops, still calls, in dreams so real to me.
Tony Gardner
