Repertoire puts you at home

what you can recognise.

Repertoire puts you at ease,

what you can identify

Biodiversity of some choice spot,

a place to live

a place to see

life living and free

life giving to me

Repertoire for a cultures voice

for the taxonomy of the familiar

and the once off

Repertoire for an accolytes education

sounding tunes to call up

each and every part of nature.

When it gets too complicated

simplify the taxonomy as you can;

one site, one list

Sphagnum species is no substitute

for magellanicum or capillifolium

dearg’s or rua’s, auriculatum for an orange one

cuspidatum, palustre, papillosum or tenellum

ones in green, water, marsh, bog and young

on the Dough Mountain are some, harnessed in the mists

Baskerville mists, down for the day, name for the concept,

and a definition of what basis, the group is made

The capitulum, leaf apices, hanging versus spreading branches,

and where the pigment hues

Taxonomy for turbines of another sort

biodiversity investment in crowberry culture

food for ravens, and the odd lapan

a hare that a snipe might disturb

up up to the mountain again

up up and past Boleyboy

with a herd of sheep in between the rushes graze

till they walk out no more

too Sphagnumy for Aries

too pure for carrion

food for ravens

and ravenous walkers

on the Dough Mountain.

After the Heritage Week celebrated walk to Dough Mountain Summit,

some thoughts on how to approach Sphagnum

See Leitrim Observer page 11, Wednesday 25 August 2021