ECHEVERIA DERESINA



This plant with the wonderful name 'Echeveria Deresina grows on our patio in Spain and hangs from many balconies in the village.  It survives drought and heat, regenerating yearly as old leaves drop and new ones take their place. The colours shade from blue to rose grey with more green tinging the leaf when water is plenty. The leaves form a natural holder for dew drops which sparkle like jewels, the inspiration for this poem. 
DEW JEWEL

Walk the corridor from street to patio,
room wide space built for donkey’s tread,
flanks fat with stick baskets,
through cool cave interior,
to blink eyed sunlight, terracotta
floored funnel, blue roofed with sky.

Flaked stone walls, mortared with trust,
dust backdrop to riot of geraniums,
tumbling down in velvet flames,
scarlets, fuchsias, blood red corollas,
summer exhibitionists flashing petals
like swirling flamenco shawls.

Raised on Valencian baked tile sits
Echeveria Deresina, earthed in clay,
syllables flowing like breaking waves,
the garden Regina rules modestly,
a shrinking corner violet, cascading
fleshy rosettes of duck egg grey.

Each cluster a perfect mandala
of spiralling leaves on woody stems,
trailing like curled shepherd crooks,
offsets shoot from white starflowers,
begetting infinite folioles in
perpetual, botanic cycle of  life.

Desert rose reigns in parched ground,
reconciled to rock splitting sun.
Echeveria Deresina wakes with dawn,
adorned with precious jewels,
glistening like diamonds on leaf crease,
exquisite, flawless spheres of dew.



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