Liz Cowley - Outside in My Dressing Gown: Poems for Garden Lovers

This edition published by Gibson Square for the first time UK Tel: +44 (0)20 7096 1100 US Tel: +1 646 216 9813 EIRE Tel: +353 (0)1 657 1057 www.gibsonsquare.com ISBN 978-1-78334-079-8 Ebook production: booqlab.com The moral right of Liz Cowley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior consent of the publisher. A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress and the British Library. 2014 by Liz Cowley. Papers used by Gibson Square are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests; inks used are vegetable based. Papers used by Gibson Square are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests; inks used are vegetable based.

Manufacturing conforms to ISO 14001, and is accredited to FSC and PEFC chain of custody schemes. Colour-printing is through a certified CarbonNeutral company that offsets its CO2 emissions. Printed by CPI. For my family, all garden lovers, and with thanks to my botanist friends Dr. John Akeroyd and Hugh Synge for raking over my verse and weeding out botanical inaccuracies.

So long coming a friend who doesnt call or see you for months until you despair. I look out in the garden remembering your company last year, bringing me bunches of snowdrops, crocus and jaunty, laughing daffodils.

You always come too late and leave too early. Why cant you arrive when I want you to? Why do you always keep me waiting? Spring where are you? Where have you been hiding for so long?

Season of hope, rebirth, new happiness, with daffodils and snowdrops once again, and gone at last, that wintry wilderness, and mourning plants youve lost to frost and rain. Season of fresh hope and new ambition, with dreams of what to plant and what to do, while picturing a gradual transition as spring arrives and skies return to blue. You step outside, you wander round the lawn, your spirits lift, your garden is reborn. Quite suddenly it soars your disposition! With buds now opening up before your eyes, you feel a surge within your mental state and do not trouble friends with winter sighs or look within yourself and curse your fate. Instead, you dream and plan what youll be growing in weeks to come now all the frost is gone, and all the seeds youll very soon be sowing at last empowered to smile, and carry on.

So long in coming, spring is here at last, and even though the sky is overcast the first new signs of life, at last, are showing.

One primrose, the first aconite, one celandine, a single crocus one bloom can thrill, restore your will, and bring a whole new sense of focus. Theres nothing that special about a wild garlic, except the wild garlic once given to me. A dear friend once dug it from some Sussex thicket, its now in my border, an odd place to be. But there it keeps growing and sprouting each springtime and there it keeps spreading and year after year. My friend is no longer.

The garlic grows stronger, and always reminds me of when he was here.

I am called a butterfly, and very often wonder why I wasnt called a flutter by, describing how I pass you by. In fact, each time I flutter by I think the name of butterfly was some unfortunate mistake its such an easy one to make. I dip and bob and flit a bit, and dance and prance when in the air. I should be called a flutter by describing how Im flying there. A hyacinth is great until its somehow gone and lost the will to stay bolt upright in its pot, and fades a shade and sags a lot.

You prop it up, and then despair to see it wilting, tilting there. Its sad to have to throw it out, but who wants floppy plants about? You stake it, do what you are able, but still it droops upon the table, as if its somehow plunged in gloom despite the fact its still in bloom. Too soon, before the flowers have died, I give up, put the pot outside. For me, its not an indoor plant. Put up with sagging blooms? I cant.

Where on earth are you? Twenty years together, and you fell out of my life, just like that.

One day, you were there, and the next you disappeared. How could you? You were my constant companion. However hard things grew you were always there for me sturdy, strong, solid, easy to work with, easy to be with. And now youre in hiding. I was a fool to lose you. You fell out of my life suddenly, leaving a gaping hole.

I have a replacement now, but its not the same. I miss your strength, your steeliness, the touch and feel of you. Where are you my favourite trowel?

Wallflowers, in the wild such loners who dont like company at all. Colourful, but solitary, content alone upon a wall. Wallflowers, girls not asked to dance and not content against the wall. A narrow door, a giant bamboo theres no way I could shove it through. A narrow door, a giant bamboo theres no way I could shove it through.

The back door is just three feet wide theres no chance it would go inside. A garden centre is a pleasure, but not if we dont take the measure of shrubs and plants that catch our eye, and then, in our excitement, buy. Im sure Im not the only prat to go and do exactly that. Next time Ill have to use my eyes, and, better, take the back door size.

Im a cuckoo Cuckoo! Cuckoo! You sometimes hear me in the spring. I never ever build a nest domestic work is not my thing.

I always find another nest and then I pop an egg in there. Im sometimes guilty doing that. Of course, I know it isnt fair. But other birds will never guess. Its odd they never seem to know. Theyre quite content to fetch the food and see my baby cuckoo grow.

And what is more extraordinary they watch my fledgling growing stout, and never seem to mind a bit when my chick squeeezes all theirs out. I leave them be. Well, that suits me. That way, I can relax all spring, and sit and laze upon a branch while other birds do everything. Whos cuckoo? Is it me or them? I think I am a wise old bird.

Prozac lifts depression, but flowers work better still. Prozac lifts depression, but flowers work better still.

Its good to keep some flowers upon the windowsill. A single bloom can comfort one golden daffodil can lift ones mood in moments, much faster than a pill. I come down in the morning a flower above the sink soon starts to raise my spirits, and sometimes in a wink. I start to boil the kettle to make a cup of tea, and every single morning a flower smiles back at me. No medic would prescribe that. I would.

I know a flower can have a healing magic, a special soothing power. Especially in the morning, and when the day is grey one bloom, one spot of colour can chase the blues away.

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