Gardening

I wrote this about my stay up at Drum, where we worked to prepare the walled rose garden for its annual open day.

Garden Open, Two Till Four

Dead-heading roses in a garden
of a thousand thousand blooms.
The intense scent evoking perfect
summer lawns spread with jam,
clotted cream and the strewn
pot pourri of stiff suburban teas.

Cutting away countless buds steamed
shut, mummified, by weeks and weeks
of wet. Plucking out the blown before
they can develop big fat hips.

Ordering chaos, playing God, so those
who pay to take pleasure in this place
need never know the dark arts
of our green-fingered sleight-of-hand.