Grandpa's Garden - a poem

I have a friend J… who is a graphic artist but like me, dabbles in many things. She felt our area didn’t have enough outlets for dabblers so she started a writers group. I was dragged kicking and screaming to the first meeting because, she said, I am a published writer.

(I should point out here that I wrote one article for our local family history newsletter, I should also point out I am editor of said newsletter – it really helps getting your writing published if you are the editor)

So I spent the afternoon listening to singers, musicians and writers perform their original work sinking lower and lower into the floorboards each time J… introduced me as a writer and I thought about how far one can go in literary circles on the strength of one small article, not too damn far at all I decided.
I also decided that the writers group was not for me, but I as pondered on the literary world in general I was inspired to put pen to paper again and wrote a 'pome', here for your entertainment is “Grandpa’s Garden”

(note: I had to give myself a sex change in the poem because the only thing I could think to rhyme with joy was boy – another reason it’s probably good that I gave up the group – I’m sure Thackeray would never have had that problem)

Grandpa's Garden ©
Grandpa has a garden,
It's his pride and joy.
I remember playing in it
when I was just a boy.
Trees were wide and spreading,
limbs reached to the ground.
Hedges thick and verdant
cast their shadows all around.
Ivy clung tenaciously, the agapanthus flourished
as every spring, with cow manure,
the garden was tenderly nourished.
Paths wound past scented petals,
grass grew long and green.
Oh, the sprouting in this little patch
just had to be seen.
To a small child at play, the garden
held many a nook and cranny,
it even had a secret place
where granpa hid from granny.
Now I am grown and a gardener I am not,
but even I can see a change happening to granpa's plot.
The change has been subtle, it began last May
when we arrived with presents laden, for granpa's birthday.
We gave him lots of potting mix, blood and bone, and Zest,
then one present stood out from all the rest,
when my little 'nipper
gave granpa a whipper snipper.
Do you know the change that happens
when a man gets a new power tool -
Granpa has become a clippin' snippin' fool.
The trees are bared,
the beds are squared with nothing out of order,
I even found the pathway really has a border.
And the neighbours gaze with reverence
at granpa's topiary elephants.
Now is it my imagination,
or is there a trembling in the hedges
when granpa says to granma
"I just go and trim the edges".