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.

A former English teacher, Liz McQuilkin began writing poetry after retiring. Her collaboration – with Karen Knight, Christiane Conésa-Bostock, Megan Schaffner and Liz Winfield – in the collection "Of Things Being Various" (Forty Degrees South) won the FAW National Community Award in 2010. "The Nonchalant Garden" (Walleah Press, 2014), was her first solo collection. She collaborated again with Karen Knight in "Renovating Madness" (Walleah Press, 2018). Her second solo collection, "Unwrapping Clouds", was published by Forty South in 2022.