Birthplace of the Resistance

by Clara Challoner Walker

In soft vanilla, melted morning dew,
Encouraged by a tender velvet blow,
Hydrangeas foam and froth in pastel cool
And hollyhocks stretch taut in rattling row.

A melon’s papier maché shell keeps safe
Within her orange flesh, eternal fla me .
A yellow acrid mist of old betrayal
Excoriates with bitter, barbed-wire shame.

Electric swallows’ arcs shred ozone clear,
Green potagers ruled corrugated straight,
A broken family refused to hear,
While soaring buzzards’ orange eyes predate.

Three Messieurs’ spades with rusty blades sharp tipped
Their filigree Mesdames sit steely lipped.
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Clara Challoner Walker, the mother of two grown up children, cast aside the corporate life in January this year, to become a writer. She divides her time between Yorkshire and The Charente, locations which have so far inspired a novel, several poems and a couple of short stories. She has four cats, loves knitting and reading.