Square Foot Gardening is a gardening done in a square foot plot . At my residency at Culpeper Community Garden, Angel, Islington this is one of the gardening methods employed. After a suggestion from one of the volunteers I decided to write my own Square Foot Poem, 12 lines. Sadly my counting skills have much to be desired and it has 14 lines instead of 12! I shared the poem with garden users from The Stuart Low Trust – I think it went down pretty well ! Wallflower – A Square Foot Poem
This pretty blue dress waiting to be picked happy peeping her shy face from between red brick. A coy blush. I wait for the thaw, Christine sorts seeds. They fall like hailstones from dry husks, windows misted. Outside the ice clings, foot and paw prints a who’s-who of walkers and those who love the rough bite of cold on skin and fur. Inside we sup soup, dunk our bread, compare wellies and thermals, look for signs of mice. The wallflower is always welcome here, like us. Drinking tea, it’s lovely here. A poem about happiness catches us, silences our chatter, tells us that ‘happiness floats!’. It’s good to hear, cocooned in warmth when outside robust kale ignores the snow, seeds will grow again.
I also had some chalk with me and it was suggested that I made a poem from the following words that people contributed - GRASS, MYSTERY, HORSE, BIRDSONG, GROWTH, SUN
So I went outside and wrote the following poem including all the words above. Growth
Growth is a mystery, from nothing something comes, the grass trodden flat by boot and sneaker climbs and greets the sun. Birdsong flutters its gentle notes resting in the ears of a solitary horse, beautiful, wise and still.
