Angela Arnold

a lack of plums

Thinking back now, it wasn't
about the few measly plums
that had the good grace
to swell and soften and respond
to a tug, offer taste and reason
for the whole effort, the space required.

Thinking back all the way to the day
hard snow came sideways
at the blossom, with its testing sound
like a probing into faith –
it's clear now that standing by helpless
but still jaw-set hoping while
exposed to the uncontrollable,
like the year before, and the year
before that, that that was the reason
for effort and space and
forgiveness. That: our connection
to snow and hope and season,
air over land, world without end,
or plums, or a need for plans.

Angela Arnold is a writer, poet, artist, a creative gardener and an environmental campaigner. Her poems have appeared widely in print magazines, anthologies and online, both in the UK and elsewhere. Her collection In/Between (Stairwell Books, 2023) is about ‘inner landscapes’ and relationships (Stairwell Books, 2023). She lives in Wales. You can find her on angelaarnold777.bsky.social.

Angela wrote this about her poem:

I love the natural world, can get quite lost in it, the away-from of it. But when it comes to writing about nature, the wider picture simply demands to be there: our impact, our expectations, and (as in this case) thoughts on how we relate to something not ultimately under our control.