Gardens speak, to us and for us.
We watch them change with the seasons
and savour their variety –
the summer garden with its blaze of colour,
the winter mostly dormant but we know
there’s work going on beneath the surface –
a garden is never static.
It’s a haven for birds, even a place
for the stalking cat, the yapping dog –
a garden is not judgemental.
We who plant do so for tomorrow
but are held fast to today. And yesterday –
we remember what flourished, what died.
Gardens anchor all who love to be
with the living and growing, gardeners or not.
*
This garden speaks for my family:
for my husband – no longer living
yet his three raised beds survive.
I see him turning the soil, sowing,
taking pleasure in watering, weeding,
in armfuls of produce he carries inside,
proud of his netted raspberries,
his strawberry plot and stone-fruit trees,
content with his lawn, the daisy heads cut off
in the name of neatness and order;
for our children, raking dead leaves and prunings
for the ritual lighting of wintry-weekend bonfires,
building cubbies high in the blue-gum’s branches
and burglar traps of sandbags hanging from wattles,
playing hockey on the close-cut lawn
and sleeping in tents on warm summer nights,
safe within our high-fenced block;
for our pets of forty years – six dogs, four cats –
an assembly buried deep in the ground
sprouting forget-me-nots;
for me, whose desire has always been
for borders and beds of colour:
I marvel at our magnolia, a dwarf
that holds maroon blooms almost to Christmas,
at red and pink geraniums flowering all year
defying driving rain and ripping wind,
at cheeky nasturtiums – uninvited guests
glowing gold in unexpected corners.
*
Since he died, I’ve felt compelled
to keep his vegetable beds alive.
I ready the soil and buy the seedlings
he always chose for his summer crop.
Always – the word catches in my throat.
But compulsion repays. I bring inside
armfuls of produce well into autumn –
as if he is still here, in our garden.
