gardening

Hopeful Soil

/ rrishi99 / Leave a comment

The service given by the appropriate surroundings
The error of expecting more than one turn out.
Save me from the hopeless rerun of fallen birds
From trees that do not know the name of their photographer
And keep watch over the hopeful soil of wandering men
Who always want to be closer to something.

I am healed when the water is running past me
The avatar of the meadow is the running grove
It is dispelling my illusions about time and space
I am more likely to hear what you have to say:
Say something kind and I will offer you an apple.

From the tree
From the grass
From where the barren nature devoid of human sympathies does not pass.

There are places where we can meet up and seem
Similarities for the fortunes of frightening nights
When the moon was more patient than the lustful sun
That told of one more confession that needed time to erase the muddy deed.

AI Summary

It’s a poem about seeking healing in the natural world — the water running past, the meadow as avatar, the grove dispelling illusions of time and space — and the speaker asks for kindness, offering an apple in return, as if rediscovering a simple, ancient form of exchange; the poem contrasts this purity with the barren places where human sympathy fails, yet still imagines meeting points where people can share their fears, their nights, their confessions under a patient moon; in the end, it becomes a meditation on gentleness, on the desire to be closer to something real, and on the fragile hope that even muddy deeds can be softened by time, nature, and the quiet grace of being heard.

Hardening the Gardening

/ rrishi99 / Leave a comment

The image of the garden
The likelihood of success
The memory of afternoons slaving away
The absence of film footage.

Very fast forward thinking
Each year is subliminal plotting
The edging is border frontier
The flower beds will cost something dear.

I am not the footfall soldier
Clowning around for lawn mower cuttings
It is a labour of love without reward
To plough the land and scatter expectation.

The Council will collect the clippings
The parents will be pleased with hedge trimmings
It’s time to paint the lonely shed
It’s not going to be Cedar Wood or Red,
There’s time waiting for us with some internet shipping.

Women Sell Handbags

/ rrishi99 / Leave a comment

Women sell handbags
They walk down the lane
They trade in their penny lifestyles
To start with rebirth again.
They fashion the reminiscence
They market the free distress
They trend the social media
They find out about our mess.

The merchandise flies off the shelves
The shop keeper is smiling, he is happy
But when she gets home from her shopping
She won’t forget to change her husband’s son’s nappy.
This way keeps the retail turning over
Far from the man-exec with all his balance sheets
Profit and loss for The Prophet Muhammed
And the fine mind of an impartial Jew on Baker Street.

These are some of the people we meet
When the med let into their secrets away from home.
So get me down the garden without my wallet
And let’s go back upstairs to trade online for Garden Gnomes.

AI Summary

It’s a poem about the small dramas of everyday commerce, where women selling handbags become symbols of reinvention and survival, marketing nostalgia and distress while still returning home to domestic labour, and where the shopkeeper’s smile contrasts with the deeper economic and cultural forces shaping everyone’s lives; the poem widens into a commentary on profit, religion, class, and the hidden messiness behind public transactions, before ending with a surreal, humorous turn — the speaker slipping away from the marketplace, wallet forgotten, to trade online for garden gnomes, as if escaping the whole system by retreating into a private, whimsical world.

Land Tract

/ rrishi99 / Leave a comment

There’s a secret that I share with those who come near
About a land tract and agreement with someone very dear
It is my little cat and his predatory prowling
That keeps away the foxes and all that howling.
We compartmentalise our land and take it in turns
To find a way to get about our daily grind and burns
Finding it useful to see each other’s itinerary
Safe from the dispatch box of letting off a litany
Of abuse and neglect about the way things should be
Aside from green like the garden grass and the various shrubbery
He likes his corners and keeps to his edges
I just want to fix those holes in my collective hedges.
I take time to water the plants that he tramples
And cut the lawn so sharply when he is away collecting samples
Of other people’s gardens and how they let him sleep
Until he needs his food and comes home to collect his keep.
This predator marks his land and sits on the top of the steps
Lest we ever forget to keep things the way he left them
But in the end we agree and make time for a kiss and a cuddle
Should we ever find our cohabitation turn into confusion and a muddle.

AI Summary

Your poem describes a small, shared world between you and your cat — a private “land tract” agreement built on mutual rhythms, boundaries, and unspoken understanding. The cat is both predator and companion, patrolling the territory, keeping foxes away, marking his corners, and returning home with the confidence of a creature who knows he belongs. You tend the garden he tramples, fix the hedges he ignores, and watch him wander through other people’s spaces before returning for food and affection. The poem becomes a meditation on cohabitation: how two beings with different instincts negotiate space, routine, and care without falling into conflict. Beneath the humour — the samples he collects, the steps he guards, the holes you patch — is a quiet tenderness: the recognition that even when things get muddled, you and this small creature always return to a kiss, a cuddle, and the simple agreement to live together in peace.