61. Damien Becker's 'the bees are whispering' -- inviting Katya Eagles into the garden

 

The bees are whispering

with the stamen, their shared secret language of love

predating the Pre-Raphaelites, Elgar’s Nimrod, 

Great Pyramid of Giza, Ugg clubbing fox’s head 

in the cave, the bees are whispering violence

 

at the noisy miners stalking the corners 

talking smack What you lookin at, but 

that streetwise fruitless pumpkin vine keeps crawling 

its spread over the deadly nightshades, whispering

It’s the sub-tropics, if you like the beach vistas

you must love the weeds blistering, popping

through lomandra brushes, lemongrass

competing for airtime, lime light, gasping in whispers

What are we, a communion? Are we working together

for greater good, or fighting for sole survival?

Is this chorus, or soapbox Sunday in Hyde Park,

South African proteas shouting over whispering

Grevillea ‘Honey Gem’ and the quiet blue-tongues

tucked away, avoiding Murwillumbah’s tomcats,

lamenting that the world is much busier now,

the garden so busy, full of deafening whispers

though the bees always rise, dip, drink sweet water.

60. Vesna Cvjeticanin's ' 'Silent Witnesses' - inviting Karina Bontes into the garden

 SILENT WITNESSES

 

When the shadows of my soul

overcome the brightness

of the moonlight,

I slip into my garden:

for a dose of crimson wisdom

from Abraham Lincoln,

or the scented presence of my

charming Marilyn Monroe.

 

My roses know

how I am at dawn,

when the cursed night’s

dreams seek awakening;

and at dusk,

as the day is silenced

by the cruel indifference

of the passing time.

 

My unlikely but trusty friends.

 

CBR 14 Apr 2025

00:50

59. Kit Kelen's 'pumpkiniferous' - inviting Pamela Griffith into the garden

 

pumpkiniferous

 

to name the age just now

 

and here is the weather

of never before

 

so many still pretending

 

but it’s pumpkin time

because I took your picture

 

having come through the dry

with bucket, with hose

 

later dodged rot too

 

I think of pumpkin my possum lure

 

they scratch raw to spoil

and loft it, coy, from day

that pink nose innocence they do

 

pumpkins hide under their own umbrellas

tangle soil with sky

 

put harvest out of creature harm’s way

and where to catch the sun

so toughen?

 

on the ping pong table!

 

how thick is a pumpkin’s skin?

 

all kin, the pedant’s instance – squash

we say pumpkin here

 

I cook

say soup

 

my mongrel pumpkin is become

with onion, spud, and sweet

 

by paprika or stock

with milk of coconut

and carraway’s my secret

 

there! and now I’ve told

 

no scone (cause Flo)

but curry could

(I’ve been advised and so should try)

 

I bring a cleaver to the task

so part the flesh from skin

 

as with a lamb to Mecca

or Abraham’s instructions

 

take one called ‘Patch’

(I name them as I name the clouds)

 

these all my children here

 

57. Ella Kurz' 'Each plant a voice in a chorus' - inviting Vesna Cvjeticanin into the garden

 

Each plant a voice in a chorus 
 

It was a summer evening. I was in the garden, below a tree, fingertips burrowing in brittle soil.  I thought again, how in some language, there must be a word for being held between the earth and an open umbrella of canopy. The feeling that comes upon a child rested in the body of a guardian. On a gardening show, I’d seen that small birds want branches that skirt the ground, so they have places to hide, and by then the wrens flitted, familiar, after my afternoon of weeding. How many times had I wished also, for a word for their movement, part skipping, part darting, not either. My daughter was close when she said they move through the garden like a grain of a film on fast-forward. These holes where words could be. I’ve weeded our garden through drought, when roots grip the dirt like a hand, and in the wet, when they pull free like a fish leaving the river. This airlifting of weeds to the compost pile, it must be in our blood – a line of us squatting over the canvas of cabbage patch. The weeds always growing in again. There’s a word missing here, too. Something about prevailing. Something about coming back, despite a lack of welcome. Something about flourishing in hard spaces – the cracks between pavers, the darker corners of the garden. 

Photo by Marian Hayes on Unsplash

56. Kit Kelen's 'April in the breezes' - inviting Phyllis Perlstone into the garden

 

April in the breezes

 

after deluge too

 

a bellow for the faded cows

their curtains chewed to shreds

 

rub trunk

 

up late

sleep the extra Sunday hour

all eyes up for the extra blue

 

clamour away bright world

if you will

 

long morning, afternoon cut short

long evening, soon to bed

 

it’s three o’clock

four o’clock again

 

that veranda clock

we used to call Queensland

tells true now

 

but they’re singing the old calendar still

nobody told the birds

55. Gabrielle Higgins' 'pause' -- inviting Sarah Parker into the conversation

    pause

water’s weight and flight

and my porous boundaries

valley filled with sky

equilibrium’s sink, rise

water is an always word