Angele Toomey Poetry

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.