May Lane, Birmingham
(After Gardeners’ World)
His coriander shooting green tongues,
over his rake Mohammed Ali says
people who do allotments aren’t made.
Bean-sticks, bird scarers, plastic bottles
stake out these patchwork acres where
you follow string straight down the rows
or skip a sort of ballerina hop-scotch
from one to another, not surprised to see
rumps rear up like errant cantaloups.
Jahangir Singh navigates with care
to nurse his crop of marrows and courgettes
as one who ferries souls to their salvation.
Whipping thoroughbred race-horse manure
to curds of liquid amber guarantees
Thomas’s dahlias beat all the odds.
While Arthur sticks to planting Kestrel spuds,
for gooseberry juice calypso-style Cynthia
spikes her mix with Guinness on the spot.
Ask Teresinha how she grows colours,
fermenting leaves to bleed wode on cloths
dipped to deepen bluer under daylight –
they are like photographs developing:
Friends discovered clutching their first fruits –
a perfect set, growing together, laughing.
John Weston
(Peterloo Poets 20th Annual Open Poetry Competition 2004 Winner)