Because we have our roots

by Alice Gretton

Garden spade.
A marathon of oak trees
Run around like a barricade
bushes leading streets of dampened grass to patches of

Garden shade.
Insects buying last week’s shop in the foliage.
Money is grass, grass is gold and
The vegetables laugh at the unfolding of the day.

Learning place.
A child finds newton when picking apples from a tree
gravity. A rolling pin of cobbled streets
Leads toes to castles dressed in evergreen and
heritage welcomes you like an old friend.

This is what a mother will tell the hand that sits in hers when on a boat.
She’ll paint it like a promised land but
promises are broken and
She only knows home in the form of a hope.

Garden spade.
I have seen flower beds become mattresses
For heads who had no choice
And they will blink when you say hello.
They know no kindness by the blindness of the day.
Hunting for

Garden shade.
Teenagers passing petals for petty change betting that they can drive their veins through the whole garden.
Veins drive like motorways

Learning place.
Fortress billboards with bodies far too furnished
Thigh gaps looking at pay gaps asking for room
Room becoming a foreign word.

The grass stands on its tippy toes to see the world flipped like a coin.
And we’re facing heads.
Hundreds of faces bracing the clapping waves to get to a garden gate.
And I pray, its not too late to open the doors.
The garden of England is as much theirs, as it is yours.

© Alice Gretton