Grandma wrote “Visit the condo for supper. Expect a surprise!” 
The letter was linen parchment, sweet with her favourite perfume.
“Two pregnant teenagers are currently staying in your old room,
They liked the portrait you painted of bluebonnets and butterflies.”

Things had changed: A valley of brooks, walls of stone,
Dreamlike, more quixotic, than the old garden bank of blossoms,
A shelter of red robins, blackbirds, woodpeckers, squirrels and possums.
Weird artichoke hedges, asparagus and ivy, even a cypress grown


Chocolate coloured owls, brownstone sculptured, cast gazes at the gazebo,
Clusters of clementine, mango shrubs dot the edge. Spying shortcuts,
I climb the cobblestone stairs, and stare as ahead struts, 
In streams of eggshell blue, a rare and vivid flamingo.

Dizziness burns. Rabbit hole approaches, ensnaring. Brains explode - cerebellum overload!
Strange kaleidoscope colours haunt the air and jewel my eyes:
Through a chrome crevice, watch a giant burgundy mantis arise.
Snapdragon, hyacinth, goldenrod and roses singing, very much Alice mode.


		15 September 2023