Stephen Bone- A Poem

Fern Fever

Joints crackling

like winter bracken she lifts

heavy glass domes, mists

trembling plumes

of maidenhair, asparagus;

is taken

back to damp cool woods,

a warm steadying hand;

remembers specimens glued

to ivory vellum

sent from far-flung counties,

names that startled, thrilled -

broad buckler, moonwort,

adder's tongue - black inked

beneath in faultless copperplate,

then gifts,

a pearl handled lens,

exquisite framed diagrams.

Fern fever they had called it,

this passion

for foraging, to identify;

the hope of finding

some thing rare.

( Fern fever was the name given to the Victorian craze for fern collecting )

This poem was first published in The Dawntreader # 34

Stephen Bone's first collection published by Playdead Press 2014.

www.playdeadpress.com