Saturday, March 1, 2008

THE WIND GETS UP AND POEMS ARRIVE

On Valentine's Day, Ming gave me a tube of red 'Make Your Own Balloon' rubber solution.

Yesterday, he used it all making oddly shaped, brightly pink, rapidly deflating and disconcertingly crinkled 'hearts'.

Next, he put the empty tube on a broccoli seedling and half-snapped the stem.

Maybe it will survive.

(? ? ? Hummmm . . . . . )

Then he moved one of the nasturtium seedlings along our bedroom windowsill so the pot fell and smashed when the curtain was moved by a breeze.

He says it's because he's nervous.

Of course he is!

We're being blackmailed.

Lucy saw the spaceship (even if it was in pieces at the time).

I don't believe we have two children.

(We don't!)

BUT -

The first two entries in the 'Down With Adverbs Poetry Competition' (see yesterday's blog) has arrived and Ming cheered up.

He especially likes the allusion to Startrek. Startrek, he says, is the most realistic representation of space travel he has ever come across!

Here they are!

The first one to arrive is by Ron Eklof who has a has a Haiku blog called
. . . in other words . . . it has been written by a real poet.)

Proverbial adverbiage quickens a Gaul's gall
Usually not smoothly at all
To boldly strike a verb's antecedent
Makes a pithy sentence more small

Brilliant!

This morning, another one arrived. This time, from Ben Perkis (who is nine years old!).

Wealthily he skilfully strolled,
Lovingly he tripped and truthfully he fell.
Laterly he strongly got up
And carefully walked away into the sunset
Shinily shining.

The wind has got up dreadfully over night. A few years ago, I would have been running around in the garden, staking up plants (even in the dark). Now, they are big enough to look after themselves.

Mine is a long-term horticultural plan.

When I started, there was emptiness.

Later, there was no room to walk because young trees hogged ground-space.

Now the Cordyline Palms and the Spanish Broom are ready to be under-planted . It is the down-to-earth-places and line-of-sight-levels which look bare.

(I don't grow geraniums.)

_ _ _ _ _

4 comments:

Ron Eklof said...

I like Ben's poem better than my own. You go Ben.
Ron

Esther Montgomery said...

I'll pass on your message to Ben. My guess is that he will be thrilled!

Esther

Colleen Franklin said...

Esther, what are Lucy's terms? Can she be scared into silence? (sound of knuckles cracking.)
You know, Ming seems like he's trying to get your attention.
And I agree with Ron, Ben's poem is outstanding, especially the end-'shinily shining', a good mixture of redundancy and alliteration....and where I live, Spanish broom is a hopeless weed with no manners. I've heard it despcribed as 'pernicious' and I pull it out whereever I see it growing when I am out for a walk. I probably shouldn't walk past your garden, therefore!

Esther Montgomery said...

Rosa . . .

Spanish Broom grows only in certain places in England, so I am proud to have one in my garden.

But, even though it is easy to grow, where I live, I am the only person to have one in their garden. (I think because it is rather ramshackle and untidy.) But its yellow flowers last almost the whole summer and, against a blue sky, it is stunning. (Though I have to hack it back every so often so we can get in through the back gate.)

In fact, I am the only person I know who has most things in my garden!

Most gardening experts warn against anyone having a Rambling Rector Rose too. Perhaps it should better be called 'Rampant Rector'! It grows so strongly, you have to keep it away from your house for fear that it might take the tiles off your roof!

But, in the late spring / early summer, the garden is filled with its wonderful clusters of small, hightly scented flowers.

Wonderful!

In fact, it is quite possible that the vibrant colour of the broom and the heady scent of the rose were what drew Ming from Mars!

Who knows?

Esther