Douglas
Nice poem. Get a tethered goat to eat the blackberry.
Steve KK
At 9:16 PM +0100 01/9/2001, Douglas Clark wrote:
>Ignoring the disaster of Scotland's draw with Croatia this afternoon
>(WE all cheered five minutes from the end when we thought they had scored)
>and England's recent demolition of Germany, and advice from the States
>that Dylan's new album is not as bad as the cuts on BBC radio predict,
>I have a great agony to expose. The blackberry spikes in my lower back
>garden are now waving eight feet in the air and the undergrowth is
>impenetrable. I tried to dig it 18 months ago and the humus was impenetrable.
>I think I am going to have to spend around 1000 pounds to get the garden
>cleared, and even then there is no guarantee of it not returning.
>
>The tragedy started 25 years ago when I moved in and planted rose bushes
>in the very steep bottom garden as a filler. Then I got ambitious and
>planted fruit bushes. And I put in a blackberry root cos I like them.
>THe blackberry took over and it was too late to dig it out. Then my
>lilac tree died (I have a poem about that!) and the weeds it had been
>holding back crawled all over. So three years ago I had a big patio
>built to contain them. But now the convolvulus and brambles are close
>to giving me a nervous breakdown as they assault my neighbours garden
>and the patio. These blackberry spikes are dreadful enemies. Thank
>goodness winter is coming and some respite. If I dont do something
>the neighbours will be setting the Council on me. Why didnt I buy
>a flat.
>
>Here is a poem from 12 years ago before the trouble started...
>
>
>Susan's garden
>
>
>It is a wilderness.
>I built it.
>I planted three blackcurrant bushes,
>A gooseberry bush and a bilberry.
>I planted two giant blackberry roots.
>On the ridge below it
>I planted over twenty heathers,
>Rich in colour and variety.
>Now it is wild roses and convolvulus
>Interspersed with blackberry fangs.
>I planted the wild roses as a border.
>They have encroached.
>I never go there now.
>I used to sit on the wall with Fritz Cat beside me
>Looking out over Susan's garden
>Down across the rooftops of Bath.
>Now it is finished.
>The convolvulus attacks my forsythia and lilac.
>I let it climb.
>These last ten years I have lost interest.
>There is no dynamism in me
>As when Fritz was a kitten
>And I used to work till dusk in the garden.
>Now it is a wilderness,
>Like Coatham when I was a child.
>I carry my past with me.
>It will always be Susan's garden.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Douglas Clark, Bath, England mailto: [log in to unmask]
>Lynx: Poetry from Bath .......... http://www.bath.ac.uk/~exxdgdc/lynx.html
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