APOTHECARY:

Amongst the fragile bottles, pretty pots & old jars,

Chemist mixes herbs, picked from under dawn´s stars,

Old pestle & mortar, pounding pods & magical seeds,

Releasing pungent juice & sap from roots & wild weeds.

Powders, unguents, salves & soothing smooth balms,

Herb poultices for pain & creams that soothingly calms,

Thick syrups in virulent colours & black- bitter dark lotions,

Herbs, leaves & bark, stewed in pots & strained into potions.

Squeezed, stirred & mixed, fragrant reductions of fine oils,

Bandage of herbs & plasters of leaves, for relief of sore boils,

Ancient herbal concoctions, tasting sour, bitter & so very vile,

Old recipes for the purging of bad spirits & the cleansing of bile.

Old apothecary, respected, bespectacled & long-grey bearded,

Reeking of dark forests, fields of herbs & old-river deep reeded,

Old master of herbs, sage of his craft, to cure ills, calm & all heal,

Apothecary, chemist, Ovate & healer, leaving his old herbal seal.