This page is for anyone who feels that they may like to share their love of gardening, allotments, and the great outdoors within the form of a poem, picture-perhaps a painting or other creative from, perhaps even a piece of music.

For a poem feel free to express any form or shape from two lines to a fourteen line sonnet, a sestina or free verse, whatever gets the creative inner poet in you writing.

For a piece of art you could post a painting of St.Ives or send in a collage of a vegetable!

But if anyone is nervous the first post will already be provided and of course if you do not feel like sending anything you have personally created to us you can always post one of your favourite poem, paintings or perhaps a short story on any theme that may envisage the gardener, wildlife or the countryside.

The first creative entrance is a poem by Rudyard Kiplings ‘The Glory of the Garden’

OUR England is a garden that is full of stately views,
Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues,
With statues on the terraces and peacocks strutting by;
But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye.
For where the old thick laurels grow, along the thin red wall,
You'll find the tool- and potting-sheds which are the heart of all
The cold-frames and the hot-houses, the dung-pits and the tanks,
The rollers, carts, and drain-pipes, with the barrows and the planks.

And there you'll see the gardeners, the men and 'prentice boys
Told off to do as they are bid and do it without noise ;
For, except when seeds are planted and we shout to scare the birds,
The Glory of the Garden it abideth not in words.
And some can pot begonias and some can bud a rose,
And some are hardly fit to trust with anything that grows ;
But they can roll and trim the lawns and sift the sand and loam,
For the Glory of the Garden occupieth all who come.

Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made
By singing:-" Oh, how beautiful," and sitting in the shade
While better men than we go out and start their working lives
At grubbing weeds from gravel-paths with broken dinner-knives.
There's not a pair of legs so thin, there's not a head so thick,
There's not a hand so weak and white, nor yet a heart so sick
But it can find some needful job that's crying to be done,
For the Glory of the Garden glorifieth every one.

Then seek your job with thankfulness and work till further orders,
If it's only netting strawberries or killing slugs on borders;
And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden,
You will find yourself a partner In the Glory of the Garden.
Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees
That half a proper gardener's work is done upon his knees,
So when your work is finished, you can wash your hands and pray
For the Glory of the Garden that it may not pass away!

And the Glory of the Garden it shall never pass away !

The second Poem inspired by a trip up the allotment, this is relatively light hearted:

Allotments Sestina

The rays of auburn sun flicker through the trees

Boots kick up leaves, as the gardener

Enters his allotment and greets his chickens

Then sits back on the wooden bench,

Watching and listening to the robin.

Singing back to him for comfort.

He knows that nature brings comfort

The warm colours that enliven the trees

Oranges and reds, red breasted robin.

All familiar, autumnal and embraced by the gardener

He drapes his coat over the bench

Walks to the cage and says to his chickens.

It’s time to collect eggs; but the chickens

In their hutch, won’t rise from the comfort

Of their nests, resting like he does on his bench.

Until the breeze blows through the trees

Chills the air. And the gardener

peers out from his shed window at the robin

The twig like legs of the robin

Jump on the hutch of the chickens

Who call for food from the gardener.

He pours from his flask, a mug of warm comfort

Watching the robin pick at his apple trees,

Taking one and eating it on the bench.

He goes to greet the robin on his bench

But he flies off. The sound of the robin

singing, echoes in the height of the trees.

Then he turns to his chickens

Throws them food to fill their bellies with comfort

And begins his tasks as a gardener.

He weeds, tidies leaves, like any gardener

And, for winter, covers over his bench

That he’ll sit on again in Spring for comfort.

And again he’ll see his friendly robin

And clean out the hutch of the chickens

And watch the new buds gather, green on the trees.

Time to go, the gardener says to his robin

Who flies off from the bench. Waves to his chickens,

Then walks through woodlands and trees, away from natures comfort.

Please feel free to comment, give feedback or work out what you think the poem is about. Are there any hidden agendas, does your vegetable act as a metaphor? Let us know and feel free to email your creative work for the next entries in Creative Corner.

Creative Corner