Welcome back, Terri. And a good poem to mark your return.One detects the
medical background!! I have to say I cannot get near my garden yet although
snowdrops have arrived for those dear harbingers never fail. Arthur.
----- Original Message -----
From: "alderoak" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, February 01, 2004 5:29 PM
Subject: New sub: Operation February
> I've been a bit busy lately, so sorry for not posting for so long.
>
>
> Operation February
>
>
> I almost missed the season's call to arms,
> deafened by duty, making future plans,
> I did not hear the birds that spurned my seed
> to raise their young on less neglected land.
>
> Now needled by the seriousness of dawn
> I'm driven out to scan my cankered bed,
> choked by a dying back of tangled weeds,
> their lobules milked, no telling where they've spread.
>
> I track the bindweed's blind lymphatic roots,
> the cancer that my ruthless fork reveals,
> then scar the soil with compost, raked well in.
> Dug deep enough each year a garden heals.
>
> This time I plant perennials, the kind
> that flower despite these cold foreshortened days.
> Though shadowed by the hazel, from the vale
> sweet sorrow-scented lilies will amaze.
>
> I pray that when the darkest weeks are done
> next year my son will find these cyclamen
> and by the twisted tree I'll hold his hand
> to hear him say 'My mother planted them.'
>
> Terri )O(
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