The exercise:
Today we write about: the approach.
Managed to get caught up on comments today since we took the day off from the garden again. It's funny, every year I look forward to the day we decide to stop weeding, that point when it makes more sense to focus on harvesting and selling and just let the weeds go until it's time to plow everything under at the end of the season.
I always expect it will be a celebrated day, but every year it ends up like this: we wake up one day and realize we haven't done any weeding in the last week or more, so we might as well make it official that we're done with that for another year.
Oh well, maybe next year.
Mine:
Heat retreats at Cold's approach,
Leaves turn red in alarm
While a wintry breeze assures
He truly means no harm.
Feathered friends flee to the south,
Bears prepare hidden beds;
All of Nature readies for
The long winter ahead.
There is a chill in the air,
This silence drifts like snow;
I can see winter coming -
There's not much time to go.
I can see how it makes a lot of sense to just let the weeds grow and then plough them under to help improve the soil for the next year, and I can also see how it would happen gradually instead of being a fete day. Still, it must be nice when you realise that you're not weeding anymore, even if you haven't got a party planned to celebrate it!
ReplyDeleteI was struck by the slightly jerky nature of your poem today and had to think about it a little before I realised that Winter isn't a smooth approach, but a gradual stop-start thing that isn't there one day but is the next. I don't think I'd have thought to try and capture that element myself, which means I'm all the more impressed!
The approach
"This is what we call the approach," said Miss Hornton, Proprietress of the Little Haversham Home for Small, Fluffy Animals. She was indicating a long, narrow stretch of lawn, a little like a golf fairway, that ran from the edge of the forest to the Home. "And these are the machine-gun emplacements," she continued, waving her hand casually as though every garden had them, "which make sure that no-one and nothing actually gets up the approach."
Her visitors blanched, and one of the ladies took a step backwards. The staccato bellow of the machine-gun caused her to collapse inelegantly on the ground, her heart pounding and her hands checking to see if she'd been shot.
"Or down it," said Miss Hornton placidly.
The Approach
ReplyDeleteNear or far it's hard to tell;
All I hear is an approaching bell.
Is it tolling my last breath?
Or announcing a parting guest?
Oh here it's stopped and I can see,
It was the bluebells rining just for me!
Greg - I think you're giving me too much credit, as that's just how the poem came out.
ReplyDeleteAh, machine gun emplacements! I knew our garden was missing something.
Cathryn - cute little poem :)