The Darling Buds – Lily

we smuggled tiger lilies

when we moved

confidently planting our

flags of vibrant triumph

in new fertile soil

 

less triumphant

we bought the next ones

local – adapted to the climate

of somewhere that was not

our garden

friends got involved – determined

by honor to share a hundred years

of survival and vibrancy that made

excellent mulch

it was our honor to announce

that really

we only liked day

lilies anyways

Lily – Honor

Every May (and sometimes into June), I do a series of poems based on Victorian flower meanings. Welcome to the Darling Buds.

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For more honor (and even more Honor), my fantasy novel, The Guests of Honor, is available here. Its sequel, With Honor Intact, can be found here.

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The Darling Buds- Gladiolus

When my grandmother grew too

everything

to garden

we would sneak into her yard and

carefully plant flowers that would

appear miraculously

when she looked out her window

we became ambitious – not

just the instant blooms but an

entire spread of bulbs to outwait

the cold in her bones and heart

in spring

there was nothing

only the tunnels of fat voles

rich on our

generosity

Gladiolus – Generosity

Every May (and sometimes into June), I do a series of poems based on Victorian flower meanings. Welcome to the Darling Buds.

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For more generosity (and lack of generosity), my fantasy novel, The Guests of Honor, is available here. Its sequel, With Honor Intact, can be found here.

Garden, Gated

The right kind of gate

is not a barrier but a

transformation

it exists to say that

nothing beyond this place

this step that is taken

will ever be the same

We offer the glimpse of magic; the next step is yours.

There is something about the teasing marriage of greenery and fencing that is made for magic and adventure. Thus also ends Alliteration Month! I hope that you enjoyed the title fun.

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For more stories of magical gates and transformative steps, The Guests of Honor, is available here. Its sequel, With Honor Intact, can be found here.

The Careless Gardener

It is a careless gardener

Who leaves the lettuce to form great forests

Of inedible lettuce trees

And watches the juniper and strawberries

Become so tangled that everything

In the garden box makes

You a little drunk

A careless gardener

Who leaves the plants to bloom

And grow untrimmed

So that they climb deep

Into the mind’s memory

Of green and growth

A careful

Root cellar of resistance

Against the emptiness

Of winter

There is more than one way to feed

Gardens are food for more than one appetite.

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For more multi-purpose feeding, my fantasy novel, The Guests of Honor, is available here. Its sequel, With Honor Intact, can be found here.

Garden Politics

The slugs were thick in the tomatoes

Curled into the leaves and scraping

holes

For the earwigs to fill

It was fireblight on the plum trunk

The plums defiantly sweet

In the face of death

Garden fruit and vegetables

all

Bearing proud battle scars

–

Nothing ate the zucchini.

Zucchini is a lesson that everyone refuses to learn

Survival is not necessarily a virtue.

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For tales that don’t involve zucchini, The Guests of Honor, is available here. Its sequel, With Honor Intact, can be found here.

Practical Metaphors

I would say that

Gardening is meant to

Feed the soul

But have you seen

The price of onions?

Rich in metaphors. Rich in onions.

You would think that I couldn’t find multiple ways to use onions as metaphors. You would be wrong.

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For more metaphorical and practical plants, The Guests of Honor, is available here. Its sequel, With Honor Intact, can be found here.

Of Impossibilities (And Other Trellises)

So many people speak of things that can’t happen

In hushed tones of sincere smugness

That we decided to soothe

One of the smaller impossibilities

A minor god

In a major pantheon of

Closed doors

Our soil – infertile

Our weather – inhospitable

The first year even the crab grass retreated

It is a slow wooing

Of small things that shouldn’t be

Manure, trellises, and time

There is bedrock beneath us

And still these small blossoms

Open their impossible hearts

Persistence is the mother of possibility

Impossible dreams must be carefully tended.

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For more persistence, my fantasy novel, The Guests of Honor, is available here. Its sequel, With Honor Intact, can be found here.

Gone to Seed

I grow a forest of lettuce

A precursor to the more stable forest

Present at the edge of all my gardens

I grow lettuce that is bold and tall

That is not confined by our Ideas of what lettuce

Should and should not be

Dazzling spirals and intricate fractals

Line themselves in an expanding row of greenery

Across the range of vision

The slight bitterness

On the tongue

Is a small price to pay

For ephemeral beauty

Uncurtailed

Unconstrained.

There are few things more beautiful and fleeting than the burst of pre-autumn greenery

I love the final moments of summer in my Northern garden.

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For more plants and impressive forests, my fantasy novel, The Guests of Honor, is available here. Its sequel, With Honor Intact, can be found here.

Tiptoe Through the Tulips

In summer, we live on what we grow.

Greens for the stomach and blooms for the heart.

Thick soil, ripe with worms and beetles, spread with the spectrum of colours, a riot of blooms and shoots.

So short the time of air thick with bird song, with ever-blowing samaras and cypselas.

Our hand-crafted greenery can feel that pulse, that frantic pace of the living and blooming.

Things grow in a riot of intensity, greedily soaking up every ray, every breath of sun-warmed air.

As they speed, I slow.

I stand in the heavy scent of peonies, of honeyblossoms-

Close my eyes and gather warm memories for colder days.

My cat also has a deep appreciation for tulips and associated greenery

There are few things I love more than the rich, heady scent of a sun-warmed garden.

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For more plants of power, my fantasy novel, The Guests of Honor, is available here. Its sequel, With Honor Intact, can be found here.