This poem is freshly lifted from the notebook. It was written after I’d had lunch and was looking at my back garden – it is a place of pride and shame. Pride because it can feed my family and shame because we do not give it the attention it deserves while at the same are more than happy to exploit it for food.
Garden life The neglected garden is thriving with an uncontainable lust to live. Self-seeded marigolds rub shoulders with invasive vines. Coloured chard reach up to the autumn clouds trying to divert attention from the dying leaves in the branches above. Lost amongst the roots, forgotten carrots and potatoes have become home to microbes and earthworms. Last season's strawberries are like all of us fighting valiantly in a war against a hidden foe. Flowers of wild fennel spray out like crowns in search of fairy queens.
Angele Toomey Poetry 