Garden Poetry – Cynthia Reyes

A Good Home

A Winter’s Tail

March 13, 2022March 14, 2022 Cynthia Reyes

A favourite from 2015

The birds are back with songs of Spring

Their tunes incite imagining

That Winter’s end will soon arrive

And living things shall haste to thrive

Via vitalxrecognition.wordpress.com/ — Image Thanks to: vitalxrecognition.wordpress.com/

A Winter’s tail, how bittersweet!

Today it’s sun, tomorrow sleet

And wind to stop us in our tracks

And cold to freeze Spring-hungry backs

One day we feel a wave of hope

Warmed by our thoughts that we can cope

And then come gales of Winter still

And blizzards coat the windowsill

Hey, Winter! Do your level best

Your time is near to take a rest

For Lady Spring prepares to rule

She’ll thaw your ice and warm your cool

She’ll rout you, kick your icy tail

She’ll make you wish you’d stopped at hail

Who’s mighty now, oh Freezer Guy

Who rules the roost? Oh my, oh my!

Blog Photo - Rainy Garden with Flowering shrubs

Spring wakes the earth; the gardens flower

She turns grass green and makes you cower

She strips away your winter clothes

And sprinkles sunshine up your nose

She brings new life to garden trail

She gives new strength to plants so frail

To stand up ‘gainst your mighty storm

And so defy your freezing form

Hey! Winter’s Tail, I kid you not

Pick up your snow and off you trot

Break down your ice and melt away

See you around, when skies are grey

See you next time, oh Frigid One

But not too soon, for Spring’s begun

And three great seasons I shall see

Before you’re back to torment me.

Thanks to Hamlin Grange for all original photos.

Dedicated to all northern gardener friends.

A Good Home, Autumn, Autumn leaves, Trees in autumn

Autumnal Tasks

October 13, 2016November 15, 2020 Cynthia Reyes

Autumn is here, rustling all of the leaves

Soon ’twill be time to take care of the eaves

Last time we didn’t, we paid a big price

The eavestroughs were clogged, a magnet for ice

And speaking of leaves, I’ve had cause to wonder

Why don’t they stay near their trees over yonder?

Why does the wind blow them into our place

Why, when around them is so much free space?

Photo by Hamlin Grange

And speaking of wind, there’s a shutter gone loose

Far up near the roof, nearly high as the spruce

And if it should fall, it may land on our heads

Or just fly away as we sleep in our beds

And speaking of beds, there’s the garden to tend

And errors we really must hasten to mend

Those wild strangling vines and the tough creeping Jenny

You put up with one and you end up with many.

And speaking of errors, that tree we bought little

Has outgrown its place — but is fit as a fiddle

Too big to dig up but too nice to chop down

Which leaves us between both a smile and a frown

And speaking of digging, some pesky wild thing

Has me gathering stones, and I’m ready to fling

It’s digging our daffodil bulbs from the soil

It’s making a mockery of all our hard toil

“You terrible wretch!” all my dignity’s lost

(Those bulbs must be planted before the hard frost)

“You do this once more and I’ll wring your foul neck!”

But Squirrel just smirks and says: “What the heck?”

A Good Home, Canadian Gardens, Garden Humour, Gardening, Gardens, Wild Carrot, Wild flowers

Her Royal Lacy-ness

July 30, 2014February 28, 2020 Cynthia Reyes

There is a place

For Queen Anne’s Lace

In nature’s open garden.

“But not in mine!”

Gardeners decline

And – oh, their hearts they harden.

Tis true, Lace will

Self-seed — and still

I love her gentle beauty

But gardeners think

That in one blink

She’ll multiply their duty.

I spied the Lace

Her pretty face

Not showing in the open

She hid herself

In clever stealth

With mint in our herb garden.

She stayed alive

Two years survived

Unseen by Garden Minder

Till recent days

He cast his gaze

And was quite shocked to find her.

Her stem he gripped

He pulled and ripped

And stared at her in horror

And thought he had

Removed it all

For he’s a true weed warrior.

I found her in

The compost bin

— This tale is not fallacious —

No-one about,

I pulled her out

Aggrieved that one so gracious

Should be thrown down

With newly-mown

Grass, in a heap of greenery

I picked her up

And filled a cup

Of water to redeem her.

And here’s the grace:

She’s fine, our Lace

She flowers now at leisure

Indeed, she blooms

Inside our rooms

For Gardener’s “viewing pleasure”.

If he’s aware

– Our Gardener Dear –

That Lace is what is blooming

He has said nought

Of what he thought

And there has been no fuming

But hold your glee

Don’t “hooray” me

For trouble’s yet a-foot

The Lacy weed

Has done the deed

And left behind a root

Though Gardener Dear

Does not know there

Is still a small plant thriving

In his herb bed

The weed so dread

Is quietly surviving.

Dedicated to people who love wildflowers.

–AND with a smiling apology to my favorite gardener–

There’s more information on the wild carrot AKA Queen Anne’s Lace, at:

http://ontariowildflowers.com/mondaygarden/article.php?id=169

A Good Home, Garden, Nature, Poetry, Spring, Spring Bulbs

Our Lady Spring

March 29, 2014March 13, 2015 Cynthia Reyes

My Lady Spring, I must confess

Your absence causes great distress

Why does it take so long for thee

To come back here and stay with me?

The sun shines brightly on the land

But winter makes its own last stand

At least I thought it was the last

Till winter whispered “not so fast!”

The tips of future tulip flowers

Came out expecting springtime showers

Then came a blast of wicked cold

And tulip shrank back in its fold.

Our Lady Spring, we need you so

Oh Lady Spring, where did you go?

Come back, relieve our suffering

And I will make this offering

No more complaints of rain and fog

No more complaints that we can’t jog

We’ll gladly tolerate the bugs

We’ll stand outside and give them hugs

Oh gosh, I just read what I wrote

I take it back, that buggy quote

I hate mosquitoes, really do

And grubs and wasps and deer-flies too

But if you come, my Lady Spring

Along with blooms and birds on wing

I’ll try my best to gracious be

About the things that do bug me

And I shall greet you in the rain

And sing for you a spring refrain

And take the bad along with good

And walk along the cherry wood

Oh, Lady Spring, come back to me

So I can stroll my garden free

Of winter coat and freezing cold

While your great beauty I behold.

Photographs by Hamlin Grange

This poem is dedicated to my friends Mae, Jane and Muriel.

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