Early stages
The ferns look happy, healthy
and green in the damp gloom.
The birches have grown strong stems
to rise to the light, above the roofs.
They must have craved nurture at the start.
And those acanthus will have needed
protection from the bully-boy slugs
till they got their footing.
Now they’re established, fending for themselves.
Some input in the early years is all it takes,
till a root structure is in place, enough
to secure the nourishment surely there.
No-one would uproot plants,
turf them out of a pot they’ve filled
all their lives, and expect them
to survive alone in open ground.
These have settled in.
They have found the light,
those that seek it.
The others their shady corner.
Steph Morris is a writer, translator, artist, gardener and cyclist, graduate of the Poetry School / Newcastle MA in Writing Poetry. He lived in Berlin for many years, now based in London where he was poet in residence at Bonnington Square and House of St Barnabas with the Poetry School’s ‘Mixed Borders’ project. twitter: @herr_morris