The respite of rosellas

I have been

A shamelessly lazy gardener -

Summer has arrived

But I have no intention

Of cleaning the weeds,

Or clearing the detritus

From last year’s largesse

Of growth in my garden

 

More than intention,

There is little will,

Beyond the burnout

Of a so-called busy life;

Meanwhile, nature thrives

Happily in the entropy

Burgeoning in the space

Between mower, shear and rake

 

I stare with guilt now

Scatters of dandelions

Have grown where

Neat and tidy pots should have graced

But wait,

A flash of carmine red

A rosella, no, two

Nibble away at the dandelion feast

 

Crimson graces my Jardin -

For the first time, I recollect,

But would these merlot plumes

Have come, in a neater cleaner patch?

The berry-hued birds prance

For a good long hour

As I watch – the ornithologist,

Scarlet scampers in the afternoon sun

 

It is when they depart

That I wonder,

Why does nature behave thus?

And I laugh myself

Realising, She has no rules

Neatly tucked in mowed lawns

Nor laws wrapped in tidy pots

Or causality in the pruned hedges

 

She exists, that is enough

Be it chaos that sets fire

To the flares of the Milky Way

Be it cycles of sun and moon

Precisely tied in steradian rules;

Whatever way we classify

There are paroxysms of euphoria

In existence alone.

 

I feel relief, to be as I am

Forgiveness to merely exist –

The fenced backyard needs a gardener

Not the blades of grass

And all guilt dissolves

As I lovingly stare at the dancing dandelions

Each setting forth a supernova

Our human eyes will hardly see…

 

9^th November 2025