She gazes at her illustration of traveller’s joy
for five minutes travelling back 
sixty years to art college. There’s no one else in the garden 
and she says the words aloud, traveller’s joy. Lips
and tongue curl around other summer arrivals;
willow warbler, orange-tailed bumble bee, swift 
and swallow-tailed butterfly. 
She’s sitting on a wicker seat, a first edition of her book
open on her lap. Leafs through pages 
savouring other kindred names; shepherd’s purse,
roast beef plant, everlasting mountain and forget-me-not.
She closes her memories and walks along the gravel path 
pinching bits of lavender to rub; her elderly cat follows- 
too arthritic to capture butterflies, birds or bees. 
A sunlit patch of lady’s bedstraw lies ahead;
her skirt brushes the yellow flowers, 
a faint smell of autumn fills the air.
                        

We, the headstrong species, may be startled
one day when spotting a skull on a leaf or
a pair of eyes flashing in shadows. We can't
imagine living in a cocoon although
we long to shed skins; skins which
have hardened as we've aged. We're told
your inner world is reconstituted while you sleep
and we too sometimes undergo a kind of rebirth.
But we're no shape-changers and we can't disguise
ourselves as dead leaves. We've inherited animal
cells so we're kith and kin. We both
manufacture chemicals: yours to find each other
in the dark; ours to raise the temperature and make
the Earth bleed.