Our temporary two week living together

is wordlessly extended,

as equipped only with electric saw

and uncle’s ancient loppers,

we next tackle the thicket crouching in the back yard

Both middle aged with bad back and balance disorder,

a morning’s work and ‘Early night?’

means we are asleep by 8pm.

 

I  load as fast as you chop

stuff hatchback and estate like suitcases.

We reverse blindly, peer out passenger windows .

On the highway I jump at every police siren

until we reach the dump where operator’s grin ‘You again’.

‘Radio Gold’ becomes the soundtrack to our tip trips,

you drop trivia about Rod Stewart by the hopper,

I punch the air out my window as Status Quo comes on.

 

Then I lop through the electric saw’s flex.

You watch in silence whilst I scrabble though

drawers for insulation tape.

As your curses’ crackle at pliers and plug

I return to tugging at brambles until I am thorn whipped.

At the traffic lights you wave a branch at me

and I feel like a forgiven child.

 

You lie awake scheming against a listing fifty foot fir

that chavy ivy has consumed like a lottery win.

We extend a ladder to ship’s rigging height,

I grip the bottom that twists as you strain

to strip ivy boughs elaborate as candelabra

until we are left with a naked trunk trapped

in a girdle of woody ivy stems .

 

My absence liberates you

from the safety harness of ‘be careful’.

The ladder is placed in the road,

leant up against the swaying trunk’s tip ,

you ascend  like the throw of a dice,

Barnum straddle between ladder and tree,

until the Chesterfield top is lopped off.

 

Saw sleeping in its’ B and Q box,

you watch, mug in hand whilst I begin to plant out,

explaining as I dig my modest Jekyll plans,

you are already on the first race at Sandown,

but as you return inside to your laptop,

‘ We’re going to have a nice garden’ .