Runner up in Artists' & Illustrators' Magazine 'Paint a Garden' competition. See it at the Artists' and Illustrator's Art Fair, Islington Business Centre between 25-28 July 2002 (Europe's biggest art fair).
Transplanted to a far-away country,
these ancients dream of an ancestral home.
Even before the dinosaurs,
the tree ferns sprouted in deep cool gullies of Gondwanaland.
Hidden between the sides of overhanging mountains,
long fronds of smooth water-dripping green
unfolding from a shaggy brown trunk.
Busily unfurling a crown of fringing fronds.
Where the loitering white mists linger
above the transparent twist
of a shallow river,
they curl and billow.
The water cool shimmers
turbulent over the rattling stones,
gurgling of nothing at all
except perhaps some age-hidden secrets
that the plants have silently shared
for hundreds of millions of years.
Transplanted to a far-away country,
these ancients dream of their ancestral home.
Acrylic on watercolour paper. 11inx15in (approx).
Copyright (c) Helen Duley 2002