Saved by the Soil

He found his purpose finally in gardening
Thanks to mid-week prime time television
And the benevolence of that celebrity, you know the one,
with soil stained fingers and the flour dusted brow-
He came in second dancing Celebrity Tango.
We are thankful to him and must not forget
that he invested heavily in Byron Killswater
Who, for weeks, was up to his neck in freshly turned earth
Amongst carrots, parsnips, turnips, spuds.
He was bedding in, they said, and we waited
Week after week for updates on his condition,
Cameras faithfully trained on his dilated pupils.
We were told how it would be his fingers we saw first
Breaking the earth, reaching towards the sun
With new found purpose. We were on the edge of our
Collective seats when finally he burst forth in April.
Towards the end of August we found him
Unusually subdued after the fireworks in May.
Sipping stewed tea from a flask, a wheel barrow close by.
His knees wet from weeding the grass. He seemed
A little ungrateful but then he told us how
He had been saved from the heroin and a wasted life.
How he owed the BBC, and what's his name, everything.
He tipped his sodden woolly hat to the presenter,
Writer, actor, singer, dancer, chef, family man and
Gardener, who, during episode five, famously pointed
His dirty finger and said 'fuck' a lot at Byron who had,
By then, lost heart and was frankly going to seed.
Of course they came through it together after
That video diary confession in which Byron
Killswater could not tell a lie about putting
His feet up while the film crew were on lunch.
In a Christmas special it broke our hearts to
See the reformed Byron scrabbling like a rat
Through rubbish left out for New Year collection.
Scavenging through the mush and coming up live,
Before the watershed, with a pornographic
Magazine covered in marshmallow and pork jelly.
We talked about nothing else during the commercial break.
All that work, what can be done to help this scum?
There was, of course, nothing to be done.
But the faithful stuck with him during February repeats.