Earthed

A poem by GERALDINE MITCHELL

I would like my life to be

a winter vegetable garden,

an unfenced strip at the edge

of a fallow field. Stout leeks

standing shoulder to shoulder,

brassicas blousy and generous,

silver artichokes spiky, aloof.

I would like to have the good sense to know

the nature of winter and welcome it,

my roots clawed deep to steady me

against the tramontane or even snow.

Relishing the chance

to comb the dormant subsoil.

I would like people passing on their way to the supermarket

in their centrally heated cars

to be taken unawares:

a warm kitchen, a lifted lid,

rich steam rushing past their cheeks.

To assault them with a memory

they didn’t know was there.

Geraldine Mitchell