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Larry Kotch Jul 2019
Your careful hands levelled out the budding bloom, and set the staging pots aside the heat of noon, thoughtful timing shifted them from watery sheltered vase to rough garden ensembles, like that you shaped the ravenous growths again and again.

With careful fingers you massaged around the banks, no garden book to guide such terrifying specimens, you could not bring the scythes to taper off the exploding flanks, so you watched from further every night.

And so with time you peer with awe at the new garden features, puzzled by a wilting stem, delighted by a fanning brush, sometimes tracing natures path, other times your gaze will be lost. Your garden bright and overgrowing.

Open the door dear gardener for life has been unleashed, when the toil of daily demands has reached its peaks, remember your creation. Know that all the blooms that cheer the neighbours, would, with your hand - the Nation.
This poem is an ode to my mother, creator of the garden that is my life. This poem thanks her for her perfect gardeners touch, helping to help me bloom, knowing when to shelter me from the scorching sun and when I'd overgrown the staging pots. But like all children, I grew in wierd and unpredictable ways, as if the garden was itself now out of control and the gardener had to watch from further every night. But though my developing personality and interests sometimes delighted her I know parts of my thinking and philosophies frighten her. To her I imagine it to look like a bright (in that her creation will always be rose tinted) but overgrowing (out of her control + out of control in general). The last stanza is an invitation to her to not shy from lending a hand back in the overgrowth. Despite what I hope to be myself now manifesting in some small way (i.e delighting some of the neighbours) I rely very much still on her to consolidate this mass of energy for a higher purpose still.
The Queen revels beyond the realm of summer’s lurid light
Yet scorns the damp recess of shade where moss has laid its lawn.
Her pale and powdered faces flaunt the earth by starry night;
Though falling, faint and faded, by the cawing crow of dawn.
Her slender, waxen limbs are draped upon her chosen sire  
Who cradles her, consumed amid the scent of her perfumes.
Wherever out her branches bend; is loveliness admired
By fleeting bat and beating moth; by men and sailing moons.
Magnificent she flourishes; dry, dappled shade her nest
Where wild and unrestrained, resplendent flowers ever grow
So fair, and verdant framed, and scarlet tipped, and golden tressed;
With flames of bronze and ivory her lighted candles glow.
The chills of night cannot befall: the hallowed earth is blessed
Wherever blooms the Queen of Night; Selenicereus.
Selenicereus is an epiphitic cactus native to South and Central America. The scientific name is derived from Selene, the Greek Goddess of the moon. They are sometimes referred to as the 'queen of the night' because the flowers open at night.
Supernal shades of blue,
Best approached in early hours,  
Lend the land a joyous hue
Where the Morning Glory flowers.

The leaves are emerald hearts
With rambling stems and coiling tips;
Every searching tendril starts
As the glowing sun uplifts.

Prolific and with ease
The Morning Glory onward climbs
Over shrubs and over trees -
All are smothered in the vines.

But now the weeds have weighed
Upon this heart they once adorned
And I am stifled by the shade  
Where morning beauty stood before.
From the earth a kingdom rose;  
Not of bricks nor made of mortar
But of seed, and soil and sun
And of sweat and stone and water.
A garden waits within my hand;
Tomorrow's paradise concealed.
All I need is time and land
Until my heaven be revealed.
Poppy sways on the edge of the garden
like some exquisite ***** dancing for her own pleasure
rather than crumbs.
She's full fed of her toxins, intoxicated
She drears  left then right, bows a bit....
The curves are stem so peculiar.
How she slipped perfect hooks and turns
into that no wood, indiscriminate thing
bending, looking so supple.
but it would snap in fragility.

Oh poppy, I sigh, chin resting on my palm....
thinking of the warm feeling of harvest.
Herbs and flowers are my favorite
Scarlet McCall Mar 2019
55--is it the limit?
I’ve been slowing down, for sure.
Trying to economize, but my size
is growing.
No longer a tease; I’ve got bad knees.
I seize the day,
but please,
ask me if I prefer the elevator.
I might see you later--or not.
We can't count on tomorrow,
but I don't dwell in sorrow.
Now I hear more, see more,
even when I've lost my reading glasses. I know what life is for.
I grow things. I sing. Gladly
I do the dishes.
I have no birthday wishes. Wishes are for a future.  
I’ve removed things, and sewn a suture.
The way I was is history. That girl, with pretty shoes,
didn’t play the blues.
Now I listen, and I play those tunes.  
I’ve got no use for pretty, ‘cept for being pretty sure.
Sure, I've been wrong—wrong to wear those shoes, for one thing,
cuz my toes hurt.
Now, I know all the dirt. I’ve got things buried so deep
no one knows. But from the dirt, stuff grows.
I’m watering those plants, and wait til you see what springs up. Time ain’t up yet,
and there’s a green hill, and tall trees, and a sunset.
I had trouble saving this poem. It didn't want me to start with a number. Weird.
When I split myself open
You reached a steady hand
Into a garden overgrown
With briars and stillborn blooms,
Plucking them away
With loving fingers,
Ignoring the wounds
That came from tending to me

Once every wilted vine
Had been cleared
From a trellis made of bones
You began plucking
Even the smallest of thorns
From my punctured heart,
Planting new seeds
In the holes left behind

Then you took my trembling hands
Into your bloodied palms
And showed me how to  
Make a garden grow

©FaerieFoxPoetry
Becca Dec 2018
I pulled at the roots
but he didn’t budge
so I left him in the ground
and I sat and thought
“maybe he’s not ready”
Alexiss Mar 2018
How am I supposed to water my garden
When you were the only flower I wished to plant?
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