Elderflower Cordial: The Making Thereof

The visit to the garden of my son’s old school.
The borrowing of the janitor’s ladder.
The secateuring of the thirty fattest, whitest blossom heads.
The vigorous shaking to remove any insects
(never wash, but why not?).
The pouring of two kilos of caster sugar
into the huge, stainless-steel pan borrowed
(and never returned)
from my tolerant friend.
The dissolving of the sugar in one litre of boiling water.
The glutinous clearing of the liquid.
The drowning of each pale hemisphere.
The stirring in of the rind of two lemons
(must be unwaxed)
and seventy-five grams of citric acid powder,
especially ordered in by my obliging chemist
(not normally stocked, as drug dealers use it to cut cocaine).
The placing of derinded lemon slices
in an orderly and attractive pattern
on the pondy surface.
The covering of the pan
With a damp tea-towel.

The twenty-four hours living in an air-freshener advert.

The sieving of the scented mush
through the afore-mentioned tea-towel.
The decanting into boot-sale-bought bottles.
The sticking of pseudo-handwritten labels
(green ink, of course).
The presenting to friends.
The freezing in small containers.
The wishing I’d kept more for myself.

The thawing out in winter.
The sudden, swirling, time-travelling
back to early summer.

23 April 2008

Inspired by the fact that I am really looking forward to elderflowers blossoming again, as last May, I made elderflower cordial for the first time, and absolutely loved everything about it! This is SO not my usual style, that I'm astonished I wrote it! I think it may be something to do with the fact that I had my first East London Stanza meeting on Sunday? (When I joined The Poetry Society in January, I was disappointed to find there was no local group in my area, so volunteered to set it up...) Talking to other poets, and seeing what they'd written, might have opened me up to a different way of working.