When you feel like a climber, trailing on the ground

There are those days when you may feel

Like a climber on the ground,

Lying there, so listlessly

Making not a sound

 

Crawling, waiting for a hand,

Green grass for company

You know there is that something more -

A higher place to be

 

But try as much as you may throw

Your tendrils everywhere

Sometimes you need that tiny prop

To answer to your prayer

 

Until, one sunlit day, you’ll see

Your branchlet growing long

Caught at last to a dying stem

Broken all along

 

Call it what’ver you may want

A climber’s leap of faith -

Sometimes - all you need is a tiny chance

A little zen of breath

 

And like a fish that ‘turns to sea

After rockpool solitude

The spineless climber turns divine

With a newfound attitude

 

That dying stem – the lonely bridge

To hedge, the orchard trees

The climber rules upon them all

The garden’s nearly seized

 

On all those days when you may feel

Like a climber on the ground,

Remind yourself, we are distinct

Just by circumstances bound

 

But after inching bit by bit

The day we find a hold,

The climber too retrieves its crown,

Its realm, the garden gold…

 

18^th March’2024

 

Inspired by the tendrilous bean plants in my garden that were languishing in the pale light of autumn – or so I thought – until they grabbed hold of the fallen dead stems of the desiccated agapanthus flowers to spring back to life and grow all over the hedges