Gardening - 2

Something like atmospheric pressure;
Before rain when the air is thick.

I'd miscalculated:
The articles were long
But too insubstantial
To carry us
Across the widening vista
Of the afternoon
And by the time she'd
Sliced the runner beans
It was still too early for poetry.

But she had put in some thinking:
Planned some gardening
To shore up the hours
Before the first glass
Of Chardonnay:
Shifting tree and shrub trimmings.

After the first pile was barrowed away
I was drawn into drastic tree surgery.
Both armed with lethal pruners
We finished what we'd started.

A sisterly quest
To rid the world of unruly vegetation:
A horticultural manicure.
A feminist castration binge:
A ruthless response
To an epidemic of Oedipal crises.

Laughing as we lopped,
Taking turns with the wheelbarrow
We built a bonfire of dead wood
While the children played on the lawn;
Shifted all the trimmings.

The garden rites completed,
Bitter incense of wood smoke
Clings to the damp air
Like an ancient vow.
The empty barrow dark
Against the fire's glow.

Our weapons are despatched
To the dark tool shed
Of our collective memory;
Brooding among the cobweb
Shrouds and the rat-poison.

The fish pie is good.
The air is thick.
There is something stuck in my throat.