WEEDS

 

“Quietly amazing, when she allows herself to be”,

an early epitaph written

while we are all still here,

“seems such a waste otherwise”.

 

When asked for memories

I have a day of hot sun and wasps,

an image from behind,

picking vaguely at garden things,

straw hat for a head.

 

Peacefully anonymous, blending into the border,

a wash of bright red, watercolour poppy heads,

a blurring of charcoal lines

with a smudged third finger,

lawn of moss and dead-headed catkins discarded,

beds a struggle of competing colour. 

 

Somewhere deep, she wanted to plan

and landscape the plot,

yet never had time.

She was loved for this subtle chaos

but didn’t know it.

“Learn to like weeds”, she would say,

“they are just flowers growing in the wrong place”.