Adam In His Garden

The sound of high-octane blades

filching daisy heads:

Adam at play in his garden.

I watch him from my bedroom window

nipping his hedge

before Sunday lunch,

razoring the shrivelled

brown roots

twisted to a coil.

The sight of his bending,

his chucking out worms,

collecting twigs for his sack

like a fussy madam,

frightens the birds and they

soar towards the safety of the clouds -

the wrath of his rake,

the fire in his words,

chasing their tails like demons.

His liquid concentrate de-fertilises

the roses, squarms and vapourises

the insects that pad

between the leaves, making them

fall like green sugar-drops,

cracking and shedding their husks

into the soil. Adam's hands -

those milky-white palms -

would throttle the most

innocent intruder, squeeze

the last sap from a diadem

and sling it overboard,

out into the wilderness

of next door (or my door)

without so much as the slightest tremor.

Pruning his branches with rusty pliers,

the drooping leaves weep into his garden -

weeping a dust-song of earth.