Melinda J. Irvine

my mother’s garden
is older than me
in places

(it has places)
i have never
stood or seen

until now, remembering
cedar trees
(dad planted them

when we were little)
and weekends
spent collecting

bush seeds,
saplings and native
vines, repotted

in the school holidays
when the other kids
in the street

visited the city
or watched
colour TV.

my mother’s garden
is green pink red
bold prickly bush

fitted with family
relics and little jokes
it does not (and

has never) melded
with next door’s
manicured greens

and sprinkler system.
my mother’s garden
was never mine

yet i walk now
pleased and picturing
thinking

about a time
when my mother’s garden
(no longer the brunt

of family jokes)
will forget us
and we will remember.

© 2016 Melinda Irvine