Come outside with me now. Through 
the gap, across the cobbles, round the corner, and there it is. Look at it with a gardener’s eye for a moment – note the weeds – those speedwells, blue as ripped up scraps of sky; dandelion leaves sharp as teeth; grass encroaching, insinuating its green way across the soil. Nothing is quite in a row. The Trail of Tears sends purple tendrils, coaxing the walking onion to join the wigwam. There’s a squash plant running riot, creeping through the patch, popping up between pea plants.Frankly, it’s a mess.
Now look at it again, with me. Stand here, beside me, in the early morning light, when the grass is heavy with dew. Look at that purple – the dark rippling leaves of the cavolo nero, the midnight pods of the Trail of Tears dangling like heavy tears themselves – and the orange – joyous nasturtiums tumbling over the path, courgette and squash flowers flaunting themselves, flirting with the bumble-bees – and all those greens -the green lettuce leaves, lit from within, fat pods of broad beans, lined with velvet, chard, and peas, and turnip tops, a riot of green.
Trail of tears entwine
green heart of the garden,
bright gold early morning
This is for Victoria at dVerse, who asks us to glory in imperfections this week. There aren’t many things as imperfect as my vegetable patch, but I love being out there…
I love your vegetable patch. There in the imperfection is the beauty. Our gardens–both veggie and flowers–are perfect for this subject. Try as I might, I find things that aren’t “supposed to” be there but have loveliness in their own right.
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It all sounds pretty perfect to me 🙂
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I love riotous gardens
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Mine is definitely rioting…
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🙂
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Beautiful poem and garden–look at all those beautiful colors and shapes!
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Thank you. It’s pretty chaotic. My dad is deeply unimpressed, but I like it. I used to beat myself up a bit, but, honestly, life’s too short…
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Oh, yes, exactly!
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Seems like a perfect and colorful vegetable garden to me ~ If it gives you what you need, and plus a beautiful gold morning….Love your haibun ~
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What beautiful colors in this enviable garden and I love your wonderful appreciation of the “mess” of it all.
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I’ve just read your garden. It sounds beautiful. My neighbours seem to have everything growing in straight lines, with bare soil between them. I just bung it all in, and let it fight it out. The nasturtiums win, most years, no matter how many I pull out, they self seed. I can’t quite bring myself to pull out self-seeders. I feel they have the right to have a go!
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Why, that’s a perfect garden. It’s easy to tell they’re not just weeds. Look at all that color. Your Haibun speaks of a riot of color. That’s something to feed the soul, not just the mouth. That makes it twice the garden. I like the Haiku. The trail of tears entwining everything else. I think I see their pods in there
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Sounds perfect to me, Sarah. I love ‘those speedwells, blue as ripped up scraps of sky; dandelion leaves sharp as teeth’ and I’d love some of the cavolo nero and ‘joyous nasturtiums tumbling over the path, courgette and squash flowers flaunting themselves, flirting with the bumble-bees’ in our garden!
Your haiku is sublime.
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Do you do pigeonhole? Just spotted a Kim Russell there…
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That’s me!
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Whoop whoop!
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I don’t see how you can call that a mess. Seems perfect to me. As is the haibun.
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It all looks perfectly wild to me. Interesting Trail of Tears and Wigwam references.
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Well, Trail of Tears is a lovely purple stick bean. Apparently the Cherokee took it with them on their forced migration, hence the name. And, of course, i grow my beans up wigwams – probably not politically correct, now I come to think of it – so the two things are together in my garden. The trail of tears reaches out to bind round anything it can grab, and the beans are lovely, and the most amazing midnight purple.
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Beautiful beautiful description of a garden this time of year. I remember our Iowa days with large gardens this time of year — I’d given up weeding and it was a riotous mass of blooms and vegetables and flowers and oh those zuchinni and cucumbers that managed to escape their originally landscaped space and run havoc throughout all else 🙂 Really took me back to my gardening days. Thank you! LOVED this haibun! 🙂
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I know! i start off well, and then by mid July, when school breaks up, I have pretty well given up weeding. I go out and hang out there a couple of times a week, and have a go at sorting out the weed situation, but they come back so quickly. I do like the fact that it’s a bit of a crazy patchwork, though.
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Your garden is more colorful that those tended for optimal production perhaps with machinery tending it. I don’t have a garden at the moment, but a patio and some indoor plants.
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Everyone should grow something they can eat, I think. You can do that in pots. There’s nothing as fresh as fresh lettuce, and there’s no point buying peas. They should only be eaten straight from the plant.
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I like the second look in paragraph two. Sometimes it takes a second look to see past imperfection and find beauty. This reminded me of my yard. The only vegetables we grow are tomatoes. It’s mostly flowers, but there’s no order to it. Fever few daisies pop up wherever they like. We call it our English garden and it is beautiful.
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Thank you Linda. I’m glad you noticed that second look.
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Beautiful haibun … I like the contrasting views and of course the second one ‘sees’ the rampant joy of a diverse mix together.
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