I’m not exactly a gardener
My house plants all have died
One of them just kind of gave up
The moment I brought it inside.
The line up there on the windowsill
But by then it’s really too late
Their branches slump like firing squad prisoners
Suddenly knowing their fate.
I water them and try to keep them happy
And angle them to the light
I was woken at two o clock this morning
By one trying to sneak out in the night.
A luscious verdant fern
Over which I have bothered and fussed
One moment will look quite perky
The next it has turned to dust.
My crocus croaked, my orchid went rancid,
My amaryllis couldn’t take any more.
Sitting there watching TV one night
It just threw itself on the floor.
Sing to your plants, a gardener said,
Sing them some plaintive sweet verse
I did what he said and I sung to each one
They ended up looking much worse.
They all seem to just kind of give up
I’ve accepted it now as a fact
The cactus and lily at the same bloody time
In a kind of plant suicide pact.
It’s like a sentence of death
Though I pamper them all to the hilt
The moment I practice my poems on them
They suddenly start to wilt.
Robert Garnham 