Poem: How to Garden

How to Garden

Clip with sharp steel.

Weed as you go.

Observe in passing

like wind over fields.

Choose sprinkle over stream.

There will always be brown

so look for green

search for blue.

Cast your eye at the sky between

the swaying trees and see the way

that it is revealed new in every moment

between the leaves’ singular dance

and know this is not for you

but witnessed just by you.

Cull caterpillars with between two fingers

when you notice them

but don’t go looking.

Tread softly.

Remember a dead leaf

does not make a dead plant

that life always lives

entwined with death.

Watch the creepers climb

the leaves fall.

Thank the worms

whenever you meet –

through them we all climb higher.

Living in Adelaide with his wife and two daughters, Rory Kennett-Lister has been published variously, including in The Lifted Brow, Overland, Collect Magazine, and by Adelaide’s Friendly Street. A writer of criticism, fiction and creative non-fiction as well as poetry, he works as a creative director at a national advertising agency’s Adelaide office, after some years of the same work in New York at an award-winning advertising, film and TV production company.

Readers’ original and unpublished poems of up to 40 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to [email protected]. Submissions should be in the body of the email, not as attachments. A poetry book will be awarded to each accepted contributor.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons / southernfoodwaysalliance