Pruning (a poem)

Everything grows fast in the garden this time of year. The rose stems stretch themselves upward, then droop with the weight of their own blooms. The grape vine climbs the arbour, blindly grasping anything it can hold on to. The weeds come back, and come back again, from somewhere, everywhere, while the vines on the back wall grow in every direction at once. All of this growth is a beautiful, abundant gift, yet I know that if I leave it untended for too long, my garden will eventually become something else entirely. The strawberries will send runners into the grass, the grass will colonise the herb bed, the weeds will colonise the grass, and the roses will block the path with thorns. The longer I leave it alone, the harder I’ll have to work to reclaim it. And here, in the wild tendencies of my garden, I see a reflection of myself. That’s what this poem is about:

Pruning

Every day the garden grows
And every day the garden goes
A little rampant, here and there
A little wild, everywhere
A thorn, a weed
A wandering vine
And I must mind
This garden of mine
Or it will turn to wilderness
And lose it’s joy and usefulness
So I must prune
And train and guide
And that is how
My garden thrives
And is it any different
With my soul?