03-01-2015, 08:31 PM
This year I'll grow no greenhouse envy; in truth, no green at all.
No ruby fruits, no piercing darts of piping chillies, nor eggplants
pendulate, purple-breasted. Not even one great, golden star
will burst, anticipating pollen; so no zucchini sans my hand.
Winter holds no happy promise, its quaint demise a silent death.
There will be no wake to follow, no joy-filled pots or feast to come.
Instead, the lichened lights grow shaded; unfettered feet
of creeping things greyed out the glass, left cracked by autumn winds.
Old frost-clear tracks, tell-tales of slugs no longer threatened,
blaze in bands of sun-crisped slime. The summer star will shine benign
on bare and barren cedar staging, littered with sharp snail-shell shards;
all victims of the killing days when sulphur fumes formed lethal acid
and black-tar fluid*, watered white, obscured the fragrant panes.
If only there was one more season, one more potter, one more yield;
then I would take my chitted set and cut it into sighted slivers,
dip in dust of saffron yellow, dibble but a hand-depth down,
into the mulch of ages. Then gently lower, cover over,
scoop up ramparts all around; each mound a living grave.
Volcanic* life lies waiting, waiting...but not for me. I will be gone.
Green shoots might stir me in my sleep, they in their bed, me in mine;
but I will plant my Salad Blues...before the winter leaves.
Tectak
2015
Notes by request.
* Jeye's Fluid. A very well known outdoor disinfectant and soil steriliser used world-wide by everyone and his dog for rover a century. Unknown in the USA, possibly banned sustance (citation required).
* volcanic. Volcano-like. Used here to imply the classically mound-shaped appearance, with a tendency to erupt metaphors from the apex(peak).( Obsc. USA
)
No ruby fruits, no piercing darts of piping chillies, nor eggplants
pendulate, purple-breasted. Not even one great, golden star
will burst, anticipating pollen; so no zucchini sans my hand.
Winter holds no happy promise, its quaint demise a silent death.
There will be no wake to follow, no joy-filled pots or feast to come.
Instead, the lichened lights grow shaded; unfettered feet
of creeping things greyed out the glass, left cracked by autumn winds.
Old frost-clear tracks, tell-tales of slugs no longer threatened,
blaze in bands of sun-crisped slime. The summer star will shine benign
on bare and barren cedar staging, littered with sharp snail-shell shards;
all victims of the killing days when sulphur fumes formed lethal acid
and black-tar fluid*, watered white, obscured the fragrant panes.
If only there was one more season, one more potter, one more yield;
then I would take my chitted set and cut it into sighted slivers,
dip in dust of saffron yellow, dibble but a hand-depth down,
into the mulch of ages. Then gently lower, cover over,
scoop up ramparts all around; each mound a living grave.
Volcanic* life lies waiting, waiting...but not for me. I will be gone.
Green shoots might stir me in my sleep, they in their bed, me in mine;
but I will plant my Salad Blues...before the winter leaves.
Tectak
2015
Notes by request.
* Jeye's Fluid. A very well known outdoor disinfectant and soil steriliser used world-wide by everyone and his dog for rover a century. Unknown in the USA, possibly banned sustance (citation required).
* volcanic. Volcano-like. Used here to imply the classically mound-shaped appearance, with a tendency to erupt metaphors from the apex(peak).( Obsc. USA
)