Bloom And Laugh
Frosty mornings hung on through the month of May. Spring was wintry, we couldn’t shake the grip of cold; the switch into heat has been sudden, and equally stubborn. At Paddock Garden the grass has been cut and all the stubble is biscuity-beige. If you look closely there is green underneath- the earth here is rich, though clay-thick in places, and not everything is nourished. We study the leafless plum and cherry saplings wondering what we did wrong, whether the allelopathic ash trees have told them ‘you can't grow here’ or a pest or a disease or drought overcame them? Will they resurge? We won’t know for sure till winter returns. It feels at first like a condemnation but of course it is only part of our educational gambling. All the other trees are thriving, even the ones near swallowed by brambles in the bottom hedge. There are cherries, plums, pears, and apples in miniature, swelling out of slender wood. Where the tractor couldn’t reach the grasses are eye height, tipped with