SPRING GARDEN




This poem celebrates my father’s birthday and the coming of Spring in the garden of my old family home. The garden saw many lives, a children’s playground, a mini allotment bringing vegetables and fruits to the table, a cottage garden with flowers, fishponds and dove cote, a mature garden loved by my parents who planted trees, grasses, shrubs and flowers to make a home for birds and wildlife. As they became elderly and less able the garden evolved once more, growing wild, a riotous overgrown jumble as nature took over, a space of wooded beauty in the middle of the city. I loved the garden, for its spirit and my memories and now my parents and the house are gone it lives on as part of me. It seems apt that the greening of Spring coincides with the day my father came into this world.


SPRING GARDEN

A year since I walked the cobbled path,
winding from house to garden’s end,
felt Winter loosening ice chains
in season’s yearly dance.

The great Oak bestrides the garden,
stout trunk guarding the boundary,
bared branch arms curved open,
embracing the urban wilderness below.

Sky home to plump wood pigeon,
soft coos bass line to robins’ song,
blackbirds’ treble, tits’ twitter,
Oak conductor to tree chorus.

Birds drawn to garden bounty,
nature’s store of worms and berries,
enriched with seed specked fat balls,
coconuts hung by lovers of birds.  

Ground slippery deep in leaf mould,
blanketing earth from nipping frosts,
fallen flakes top composting, peat
wormery protecting budding shoots.

Early springing of bulb colour,
popping up haphazardly as
squirrels rebury their pilfered
stock of Winter goodness.

Spikes of green crocus crowned
in golds and velvet purples,
stamens of saffron richness,
regal cloak spread on dark earth.

Strokes of scarlet on broad leaves,
stems willowing in March winds,
sensuous tulip hearts startle against
starkness of twigged nakedness.

Clumps of yellow daffodils,
trumpets of petalled sunshine,
sorbet of narcissus and lemon creams,
harbingers of warmth to come.

Feel season’s circle under Spanish sun,
can only now recall the awakening
of the Garden, celebrating with each
returning Spring, my father’s birth.



© 2018 Jacqueline Claire Knight.  All rights reserved. 

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