‘Ten daffs by post’ –

Hardly a host!

Those that don’t rot,

As likely as not,

Will come up blind.

I wouldn’t mind,

But those that flower –

The slugs devour

Or the rain knocks over

Into the clover.

Old Wordsworth wowed

A lonely cloud.

Our rain-bringers

Ain’t got such green fingers!

A glume that’s mucronate, an awn,

A lodicule, a blade;

A lemma short, a ligule torn,

A sheath with edges frayed.

Racemes and clasping auricles,

Rhizomatous and keeled;

Nodes and nodding panicles,

Minutiae of a field.