Poem by Renee McAlister (gardener, and Garden House friend)
Posted:19 August 2011
Rudolph and Peter’s Garden, Early June, Late Afternoon 2011
Poem by Renee McAlister (gardener, and Garden House friend)
Alcanet fusing with Geranium.
African daisies shut-shy without sun.
Bristling box with stray branches untrimmed.
Spidery Iris like bee’s eyes: undimmed.
The garden, in thickets of late afternoon,
is unsettled still, but will still with the moon.
Bamboo is bracing. The pace of the breeze
speeds up as it batters the flat leaves of trees.
Buddleia’s budding. Its dark brush will come
and paint purple parapets, spires of plum.
Hazel-shade shadows the dead Bleeding Hearts,
whose slow-beating life will return when spring starts.
Cornus and Hollyhock, safe below Birch.
Cranesbill, through Hebe, continues its search.
Grasping at Fuchsia, Lonicera climbs,
its aroma a rhyme to the Fuchsia’s white chimes.
Cloud Ceanothus that mirrors the sky
in the spring, as it screams out its blue battle cry.
A straggle of Chives guards Begonia’s blooms
while a pale Helichrysum frisks them with fumes.
A wind from the South shakes the sound from the sea
and, though sirens splash shouts through the green, I am free
in the salt-saturated and seagull scared air
watching gold Philadelphus shed petals and care.
The harsh scent of Rosemary drops on the grasses
whose shoulders are hunched, for they hide as time passes.
The courage of Quaking Grass staking its claim
as it eases itself through Tobacco Plant’s flame.
There are boxes of Basil, of herbs and of Pinks.
No longer a wall where the great Ivy thinks
of another wall, other bricks, render and tiles
onto which it can cling, onto which live for miles.
The South facing border is pent up and primed.
Imposing Anemones, growing in lime,
shift their corpulent foliage east and then west
and Verbena unfurls fists of mauve at its crest.
The soft Dusty Millers, all purring and fur,
press their paws in the earth as if to deter
the encroaching Hydrangea with flattened false flowers,
its patterned white plates making meals out of hours.
The chattering Strawbs are absorbing the light
as they gossip of red flesh and talk of the night.
The Cardoon is King, though it waits for its crown,
its cut-silver accent born far from this town.
Spent stars of Allium wait for their kin
to appear in the black of the night’s fleeting skin.
Columbines colonise unconquered soil
and Sedums seem infused with bright, verdant oil.
As Lavender licks at the last of the light
and the sun seethes and settles, bemoaning the night,
and the wind slaps a cold evening hand on my back,
I walk back to the house. We all walk into black.