Cherries Are Not the Only Fruit

Throw myself into gardening this morning...
autumn, fast giving way to winter – trees
to prune, the vegetable patch to be dug
and beanpoles taken down.

Peace of mind to be reclaimed
amidst a kind of grieving; the only way.

Bulbs – rotting where they hang
in the potting shed; open bags
of John Innes Number Three
spill out on a leaf-strewn floor;

empty seed trays, stacked – one
inside the other on a makeshift bench,
littered with droppings of a visiting vole

and I wonder why she doesn’t call, and if
the cherry tree will fruit again,
next year...

as I hear her saying, ‘Why do you
hold on to all that pain? And me
replying, ‘I’ll put it down then...
only – where?’