These awkward weedy notes of summer, they steal
water from the subtle artful crafty ones, the ones
crammed with food and hose drenched, and yes,
fruit-bearing they’ll be, and well spent.
The mollycoddle promises a bumper crop this year,
but what will be done with it all?
They can can the coddle, bottle the molly,
boil the gruel for ballet to improve posture,
post this and that here and there without
regard for the rules of a bygone garden.
The cooing of pigeons so quiet,
the stained glass raw golds
color the little nook with amber light.
No words in nature to suffer these weeds,
still birds align in lines that make sense,
the washerwoman counting syllables
come morning the clothes inside out.
And the slug slowing has something to say,
heading under the clinker cool brick.
These appellations June dropped,
in the day squirrels gnaw them,
at night possums come and grab,
and raccoons, and very early
in the morning, just before sunup
now, the coyotes looking for cats up.
Give us the weeds our daily words,
and forgive us our arrears,
for we are hard on hearing,
and we don’t really need
words, anyway.
We might want words, why,
I’m not sure, but we need
water, weeds and all, and you,
you have all the words,
more than you need.
The Coming of the Toads 
Is this your lament for bygone gardens?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good question, Ashen. I’m not sure. The formal garden, the concrete poem that is topiary, and symmetry is still nice to see, but before long and there’s shaving of the legs and under the arms and lacquered hair that wouldn’t muss in a hurricane, and men in ties and button down collars and spit shined shoes. Thus we garden our bodies, formally, or we go to seed, at the mercy of the pollinators, who are excellent at advertising and marketing. Or wood that bee the pollenizer? Anyway, the days of the formal haircut are now long gone, and I am indeed wearing my trousers rolled, ever mindful of the trip and fall hazard. I keep to the alleyways, never far from a goose foot. No need, should be no need, to skirt a poem, but skirting is a matter of convention. And some of us have some pretty awful knees these days. Must beware of shorts.
LikeLike