Osterglocken
Not having the English on her tongue
or thinking perhaps of Easter eggs,
the passed church bells, time moving on,
she said, 'I like Osterglocken'.
I smiled — at the flowers and the woman
whose name is Erika, a heath blossom.
'I like them too.' I like the flowers
and the words; the one in my head
and more so the one in hers:
Osterglocken — an Easter bell,
more musical than the one I know:
the daffodil — the simple asphodel.
Published in the anthology This Little Stretch of Life, 2006
Jacqueline Gabbitas is a poet and writer. Her work has been published in various magazines and in Entering The Tapestry, the second anthology from The Poetry School (Enitharmon, 2003). She is a poetry judge for the Koestler Competition and a site expert on the Writewords website. She was born in Worksop in Nottinghamshire and now lives in Walthamstow, London.