Wood roses

There is a very old deodar cedar crammed into our front driveway.

Really it should be stretching its branches luxuriously

over a smooth green lawn,

instead it shields us from the vacant gaze 

of the occupants

of the top deck of passing buses

and tangles with the telephone wires.

Its upper limbs are home to wood pigeons,

squirrels, magpies

and the UK's smallest bird, the goldcrest.

We can watch them cavorting from our bedroom window.

It drops a rich variety of parts onto our car;
the copious by-products of pigeon,

long air vent invading needles,

 yellow powder bombs, (the male cones),

and now, in vast numbers,

the female cones are clattering down

to shatter on the crazy paving.

I save the whole ones for the window sill.

Wood roses.