Eric Winter reads Poem For a Gardener (M.P.) @ Cobourg Ecology Garden

Poem for a gardener (M.P.)

I doubt if you noticed the crow that was there on that day
the one with a faraway look in his eye
thin, with a hump back, pecking away
poking at mud,
making a couple of flaps with a cry
pretending indifference as any crow should.

You did not know then you’d soon be taken with Rue,
Fever Few, Lungswort and Leprachaun’s Gold,
Too taken up with the plain buttercup
with Fleebane and Woodruff, Bloodroot and flax,
and all of your flora.
In brief, you were a bit lax
when it came to observing that black bit of fauna
still keeping an eye out, nosing around
and pecking away in the corner.

Now apples are ripe and ready for plucking
sunflower all blackened.
Rudbekia gone and gone Coreopsis,
Stacis Byzantia, gone is the Primula
and only Chrysanthemum stays. How summer flies!
Now here’s a surprise
It was me, me wearing my Halloween disguise,
I was that crow with the hump and the shifty,
faraway, look in his eyes.
And I saw it all.

He came like a storm telling stories of stables.
The big one, immortal, who labored twelve fold
and by ruse he had stolen the apples of gold
fresh from the garden of Hesperides
and (Good Heavens!) it has to be told
You got taken in,
He seduced you down by the harbour’s west wall.
I wasn’t meaning to watch, I tell you,
I wasn’t meaning to watch,
I wasn’t meaning to watch for the fall,
but I saw it all.

It’s too much on my conscience for me to stay mute
I know what went on with that bearer of fruit,
stinking of cow muck.

Say what you will - the mythology pardon
I’ll tell them to look by the lake.
The consequence there!
They can see for themselves -
the little one there called Ecology Garden
I know what you did.
I know what it was went on there
I’ll let the town know.
Watch out now.
You’d better beware.
For I’m going to tell.
I’m going to tell on you
Minnie Pennell.