Plant pots upended, half-germinated seeds tumble,
in a rush to find an edge, an inkling of solid ground.
Putrid soil tingles after winter’s long repose.
It spills out of gutted bags,
covers fingers, boots and staining
trousers, nails, knotted hair.
The watering can leaks, remembering days
when they preferred it to the hose.
Hot/ cold/ on/ off
I don’t know where are whose limbs.
Bulbs clutched closely in sweaty palms,
cold the shiver and tremble in air so thick
you can cut it in chunky slices
if your knife would just stop shaking.
Crunch of snail-shell, trodden and discarded –
Quick, no time to bend down and recover!
Just tidy those dusty scissors, ravel the twine, drop gloves in slurry piles,
anything to stop the hurrying of time’s wingless spider legs.
Those seedlings need mulching, you know, to turn into flower.
When the fire’s petered out
we remember in the corner
a rusty wheelbarrow.
A rather literal interpretation of the ‘seeding’ prompt that Shanyn has given us over at dVerse Poets. I was thinking today of how each of my actions, even more than my words, seeds thoughts and reactions in my own two children. I only hope they turn out to be flowers, not weeds… And from raising children, it seemed only a little jump to the making of children… Not that I ever had a garden shed, you understand…
