I won't leave my Walled Garden

Gold cherry

By Jane Hyphen

Fri, 03 May 2019
  • 4408 reads
16 comments
 

 

I won’t leave my walled garden

Through scores of season cycles

I’ve nursed and nourished soil

And plucked the lump stone

To form freethinking loam beloved

By all who wish to grow their minds

 

As each frost knocked me down

Brick on brick I placed until

I blocked the savage winds

Obscured this broken world

Of certain hostile lands beyond  

 

Kept out the brigand beasts

Who innocently smiled as

They trampled sapling dreams

Now, inside this bordered scape

We are serene, these living things  

 

Place our hands upon the turf

Down four thousand miles

There is warmth, the fiery core

The pulse of where it all began

We feel and know for sure  

 

Forces of palette and texture

The woodwind songs of birds

Murano butterflies and endless

Unexpected acts from the cosmos  

I won’t leave my walled garden

 

 

Certificate U
Poem

Comments

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

all power to the gardener! smiley

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Thanks for the cherries. All the gardeners through time have changed the landscape of our world, for better and for worse.

 

Submitted by Schubert on

A very heartfelt and connected poem written with panache. Well done.

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Thanks Schubert, especially for the word connected, that is a compliment indeed. 

 

Submitted by skinner_jennifer on

A great poem of determination and effort reaping those rewards.

Jenny.

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Hi Jennifer, you can cultivate your mind as well as your garden, weed out the invasive species, rotivate and till so that you're ready to accept new ideas and grow them. Both are hard work and take determination but worth it as you said. Thanks for your commentsmiley

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

Like armouring the mind and heart to nourish well what is good and beneficial, against the onslaughts of enemies intent to harm or harm the good and happy things growing well, and planting bad and depressed thoughts (and I would say God and his Word can help in the work of protection of the garden and good cultivation). Rhiannon

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Thanks Rhiannon, you are right about nourishing and armouring with the help of which ever tools are suited to you. Certainly God's word has been a framework which has guided many people.  

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

oh Jane, this poem resonates so much with me!!! My garden was a drive when we moved in. I paid someone with a bulldozer to dig up the concrete and gravel but what was left under that was hard packed cinder I think, which I managed to break with a small pickaxe and over the years get rid of so roots can go down, though solid bedrock is only a metre below ground level. I have so many rocks, I don't know what to do with them, and like you have become adept at walling now :0) Everything you write of here is how I feel :0) It is so important to me to believe I am looking after my bit of Earth, letting it work again! Whenever there are bees or hoverflies or moths (bit shadey for butterflies) I am so happy. And though we feed the birds, when I see our blackbirds with their beaks all full of insects disappear and come back, knowing they are looking after their families. I love this poem, how you explain what it feels like to get out one of the huge rocks I can only roll they are so heavy

And plucked the lump stone

To form freethinking loam beloved

By all who wish to grow their minds

while all around people are putting down concrete and tarmac and cutting down trees, when it is the last thing the world needs. Opinions and prejudice as lumpstone and old concrete

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Thanks Di_Hard. It sounds like you put in a lot of effort and are reaping the rewards, observing the return of nature. I too get a lot of blackbirds and thrushes collecting insects which I think has a lot to do with avoiding chemicals and slug pellets etc. Most people would balk at the idea of digging up concrete to reclaim a garden but you have brought your little plot back to life to host hundreds of organisms.

 

Submitted by Penny4athought on

I found so many ways to interpret this, one, it sounds like a marvelous garden planted and protected, but two, I feel it is a soul that is planted and defended in that garden and will not venture beyond the wall to where it is not protected. I especially loved the words: (Kept out the brigand beasts, who innocently smiled as they trampled saplings dreams, now inside the bordered scape,we are serene these living things.)

We all deserve to be safe from brigand beasts.   Well done, and well deserved cherries.

 

Penny4athought

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Hi Penny you are right, I was running two themes through this peice, a literal garden and also my mind and how we build walls and cultivate mechanisms to protect us from harm but also work to keep our minds loose and open. Those brigand beasts trample about without a second thought. Thanks for your kind comment.

 

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

This beautiful, multi-layered poem is our Facebook and Twitter Pick of the Day

Please share/retweet if you enjoyed it as much as I did

Picture Credit:https://tinyurl.com/y397wjsf

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Thank you x

 

Submitted by celticman on

we all live in walled gardens of some kind, but whether we grow our mind, well, that's another story, poetry. 

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Yes we do and the older you get the harder it is to step outside of them. I wonder if you grow some parts of the mind and others just become barren. Thanks celticman.