Lilies of the Shallows
Along the canal, they are hugging the banks,
To be keeping well-out of the slow shipping-lane,
With their gear-stick flower-buds breaking the surface –
Tightly wound and so yellow-with-purpose.
They open like eye-stalks on periscopes-shanks
While their landing-pad leaf-pods are drumming with rain –
And their previous blossoms are brewing-up brandy
For drawing in bees like a backwater dandy.
Rhyming Couplets 