Garden Path

as if Monet had planted water lilies in Babylon hanging gardens at the heart of a canvas of joy hiding despair at Speaker’s corner in Hyde Park debating journeys and destinations like Epicure a silent whisper reaches my midnight blue soul ‘trust me’ she chants ‘I am Gaia all will be good’ Versailles meets the red poppies of Flanders Cosmos flowers reach out from the trenches Honeysuckle creeps up a window of change thistles engulf a few stray hawthorn branches Klimt kisses Munch’s scream in consolation Vermeer lost an earring in wild undergrowth I paint in my mind over disbelief and mistrust gather seeds and offshoots running away shelter an acorn on its way to an oak tree replace a worn noose with a stepladder a trowel hung from a rusty nail in my derelict shed wheels had come off the barrow and refused to spin I removed my torn gloves and brushed over fears ignored blisters of hardship and touched the soil sought blessing and gratitude from a kind nature as a silver moon watched and I lost all track of time lavender fragrance mingles with cinnamon bark nettles attract butterflies that feast on its scent earthworms turn over compost for a fresh start heaps of old logs give harbour to bumbling bees once imprisoned in a colony of rattling snakes with only rotten apples to nourish my charcoal pain hornets building their nest on wood worm and sorrow dried ink in my pen refused to see the beauty of change stung into living by polychrome complexion with each weed requiring an hour of courage fertilized by resilience of coarsely ground bone it was the garden that saved me from passing on callus meta morphed into palm trees and life lines scars healed over time with a pitch fork’s guidance a water trough filled cheered on by receding drought oiled secateurs pruned aberrant twiglets and roots today I walk barefoot on what promises nurture cherish my meadow and discover my own ground share a vegetable patch with ladybirds and snails and refuse to be the corpse I was destined to be 12 June 2020