My Roof Top Garden

My Roof Top Garden
P K Routray
Edited by P Gaan

I live in a city
Hardly observe nature’s bounty
Have gone sick of seeing every where jungle of concrete structures
With artificial lights and artificial flowers
I thought of a roof top garden
As I cannot afford to have place of land of my own
With earthen pots putting earth within,
I planted many saplings as did I imagine.
Rose, Jasmine marigold and hibiscus decorating the pots
Seasonal and fruit bearing plants filling some slots
As I am retired, I have plenty of time to spare
Watering the plants, weeding out the pots myself, I take every care
Man without work feels dull; dreary and monotonous
A suitable engagement one must have to keep away mental agony and breakdown nervous.
I tried social service, but miserably I failed,
To comply with the complexity of its need then I ailed.
Trees only give but hardly do they take
They grow and die for others ‘sake
I feel obliged for their fruits and flower.
And for many other indirect blessings, on us, they shower
The call for plant, environment and ecology has been found lost
I have vowed to nurture plants and spread the message at any cost.
Hence I chose to nurture flowering plants on my roof top terrace.
It proved a blessing as now I get heavenly bliss with their beauty, smell and touch at a glance.
I sit and watch them to blossom from buds
I think and ponder “How to save them from natural odds.
I have now less time to idle and worry
I tell this to others as my present pleasant life story
While watering them, they hit me with their thorn.
Perhaps to tell me that they need some more attention
Impurity in my thought at times force me to interpret this as their fight
To convey me through touch that some deserve better care because of their beauty.
The eloquence on their growth speaks of their health
But they don’t murmur even if they starve to death.
With declining power of my sensing organs
I go close to pots, as if they want me to be a part of their actions.
Perhaps they want to bestow their divine grace
On all my body organs and profusely bless.
Bees come and so also butterfly
They come up without stairs, why cannot I?
I have my sympathy for a Bonsai in a pot.
A banyan tree, kept dwarf in size with its stems and roots cut
A bonsai must be shedding tears of pain in silence,
As if a lion, tortured, tamed and kept within a fence.
I love gardening as the best in my life
I had wasted my time so far, that I can tell with grief.
I long to invite my friends in A B Cee
To come and sit in my roof top for a cup of tea.