Friday, 9 May 2025

Garden of delight

Garden of delight

If I don’t mow the lawn, the daisies grow – 
they lift their golden faces to the sun,
their petal ruffs splayed brightly from their necks. 
The grass in tufts surprises me. 
Why is it not one even mass of green,
ten thousand lances neatly pointing up? 
But no. A clump, a patch, another clump, 
and interspersed the usual garden weeds. 
Was Eden’s lawn a neat landscaper’s dream,
a living carpet, uniform and clean,
or lush, fecund, with clump and patch and weed? 
I no more want a club green-keeper’s dream 
than I would want a High Street full of clones
or Stepford wives all crisp and uniformed. 
O, let our wild world garden grow 
a gallimaufry of delight,
all classes, colours, sizes, shapes, and songs
thriving, thronging, belonging, and beloved.

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