The Imperfect Gardener

 

Someone once said, long ago or last week,

that it's futile on a finite and populous planet

to seek a truth, or a finely polished apple,

in the still-life-on-canvas we daily behold,

and by such uncouth behaviour

we are mostly confounded, and fail to grapple.

 

So we're prisoners here, in uncounted millions,

unable to leap high or fast enough to fly

closer to perfection than Icarus (though the sun stare)

and would die in a plunging shout for salvation,

condemned by fate and the imagined walls

of his imprisoned father's own despair.

 

Better to be an imperfect gardener;

to know wattles lose vigour in youth,

their short lives truncated by disease,

and that grass-trees survive undiminished

for many centuries in Australian sere;

like convicts in chains, no ticket-of-leave.

 

For the scythe-swingers heave on the mowing-grounds,

sweating cobs for nothing a day,

swearing freedom will come with approaching shade

as the gang-wardens turn away ….

 

Attend to your garden, its colour, its life,

where imperfections are perfectly made.

 

Chris Hubbard

Cannes

2017