The parched grass had been kind
to the clover; also, it was spotted with
soft clots of strawberry, plucked from the
wild plants in the garden and dropped soon
after. There’d been fights for these fruits;
what with robins, blackbirds, wood lice,
slugs and what else helping themselves
under cover of night and rain storm. Bees
hung around like punctuation in a short
sentence. I wanted to surrender the small
lawn and hand it over to wilderness; the
idea seemed to have spread and now
the whole garden was a dry jungle. In the
absence of rain I had to water the pots and
bedding, a slow process made more
interesting by the sun on a soft breeze
swiping across my bare back. A wood
pigeon with a hunger for seed stopped at
the feeder, hassled by sparrows but standing
his stead. After all, he had size on his side.
Water from the hose, sweeping in an arc
at one point produced the tiniest rainbow;
it must have started and ended in the same
space, within the confines of the wilderness.
There are nests, hidden, in the beech hedge
and the clematis with blackbirds sleeping
in the oak. After I’ve soaked the garden I
suspect it might rain soon, only because
this has happened before. Pots store water
and the dry non-lawn plays its own game.
John Gimblett