I feel the last part needs an addition - to take account of the fact that although much is yet to come, some plants, especially the snowdrops, will have been and already gone.

Brazen in their confidence
While others are still asleep or dipping
In and out of chlorophylled dreams

Or, having woken early,
Are falling back into a deeper sleep.


I am half-satisfied.  What I have failed to do is get the feeling of soil, earth, dirt.

But I do have the other little rap:

soil welcomes
any lodgers
long stay weeds
dutch hoe dodgers
root out weeds
weed out roots
take aim! Grasp!
remove white shoots
spaghetti tendrils
bindweed recruits
because -
soil welcomes
any lodgers
long stay weeds
dutch hoe dodgers!

Having had some time on trains up to Glasgow and back, I 'messed around' with the lines and came up with this rearrangement which I'm quite pleased with -

Here among the damp duvet of leaves and stalks
The crocuses are having a long lie-in
Awaiting the wake-up call of light and warmth.

The snowdrops are already up and about,
Overcoming their shyness, their
Eager white faces newly scrubbed.

And daffodils! Green rockets fired from
Little onion silos into light and air,
They will burst like yellow fireworks

Brazen in their confidence
While others are still asleep or dipping
In and out of chlorophylled dreams. 

This is how I continued the bed analogy

Here among the damp duvet of leaves and stalks
The crocuses are having a long lie-in
Awaiting the wake-up call of light and warmth

The snowdrops are already up and about
Eager white faces newly scrubbed
And daffodils! Green rockets fired from
Little onion silos into light and air,
They will burst like yellow fireworks
While others are still asleep or dipping
In and out of chlorophylled dreams .

I remember now that another idea I had (which I lost with the lost blog-post) was a contrast of the snowdrops shyness / reticence and the daffodil's confidence.  I wonder if I can still work that in.  I don't  want the poem to be too long either.

I don't know what happened to yesterday's entry.   Drat and Pshaw!   I shall have to try to reconstruct my thoughts as best I can.  I recall starting off wondering about this line:
Here among the damp duvet of leaves and brown stalks - and whether duvet was a good way to describe the earth covering. I like the way it echoes the bed in which flowers grow. That encouraged me to see if I could take it a little further. Blanket - sheet - pillows...   Sleep itself.

Here among the damp duvet of leaves and stalks
The daffodils are having a long lie-in

No, the daffs are already shooting up (growth is faster than my ability to compose) - it's the crocuses that wait awhile.

The crocuses are having a long lie-in
Awaiting the wake-up call of light and warmth

The repetition of w wasn't planned but I like it.

I don't recall much more but I will go away and think about it. Let me make sure I save this properly!

 

A different mood today.  Putting the rap style to one side for the moment.  Thinking about what I have felt and seen.

Here among the damp duvet of leaves and brown stalks
Are the definite / determined green(s) of  (bluebell) bulbs
(fired) from their underground silos/minarets
nearby, tender but as determined
snowdrop fingers clutch the edge of earth
any moment (time now) their heads will venture out
and surprise us (again)
with their innocent white faces

Just a start.  I think adjectives are hard. They can so easily go wrong. It's easy to sleepwalk into the wrong adjective, or try too hard.

I like the idea of soil being indiscriminate - amoral -
if you don't stay vigilant, any resident or hard-to-remove squatter will move in

soil welcomes
any lodgers
long stay weeds
garden hoe dodgers

Thinking about the bulbs, especially tulips and bluebells - their shape is hard to describe. They are like the tops of minarets or the kremlin, but how are such buildings described? As onion-shaped!  Which kind of brings us back to where we started. 

I also want to convey the idea of the tenderness of some plants, like snowdrops, but how this is mixed with tough determination.

Away at the BETT show and now back down to earth, thank goodness. I did look at my notes on the train and a few phrases came to the surface:

root out weeds
weed out roots

which I liked just because it's word play that works. 

Take aim
remove whiteshoots

takes me into rap mode again.  Is that where I want to be?  What are these white roots?  They're the tendrils I noted in my first splurge of ideas.

spaghetti tendrils
bindweed recruits

Then there are the good guys  - tender fingers (noses?) of snowdrops
groping into the light
tough short daggers
bluebells stabbing upwards
...
unlikely carriers of delicate blossoms

I don't know what shape this will have yet.

More thoughts on the good earth...

...fat worms - birds alert?  those bulbs I saw, what are they? those are snowdrops, already forming drops, these are bluebells, very firm and sure of themselves. some must be daffs. what else?  wait and see.  autumn's fallen leaves now beginning to rot down, odd stalks - brown and sappy, others brittle. soil is moist and crumbly. that's meant to be good. in amongst the weeds and leaves and bulbs there will be seeds - invisible to my eyes. waiting, waiting.

I'm away for a few days. Some of it on trains, so I may get a chance to consider what happens next.

Happy New Year...

Time to start a fresh bout of creativity. But what if you don't feel creative?  Hmmm... happens all the time to kids in school.  Me, I just look out of the window or go for a walk (this latter not usually available to pupils) or think about what I did yesterday or the day before - no further back yet, unless I get really stuck. 

Apart from catching up on emails and Xmas card messages I did manage to get out in the garden both days at least for a while.  Weeding and moving plants to better places (I did type pants but decided it was inappropriate) and cutting back some dead leaves and stalks...   all quite therapeutic if you don't set unreasonable goals.  (Therapeutic?  We all use that word. Sort of implies we're all in need of therapy. Perhaps we are but I think it's more a case of word-creep as in the case of awesome, traumatic etc.)  Back to the plot. The garden plot - and there are plenty of images and ideas which I've begun to jot down on paper. Here are some.

Earth   fingernails black  rich soil (soiled, though = bad) dirt and dirty = negative too but moist dirt or soil is good!  time to remove, root out, despatch weeds, especially perennial weeds feathery roots or long thin roots like elongated parsnips. and little white spaghetti like tendrils - innocent enough but ready to cover your soil with little weedlets.  then there are the bulbs hiding, nestling, lurking in the soil. some are poking their heads (fingers more like it) above the ground, some I reveal in my planting and weeding as just long white fingers as if groping towards the light - which is exactly what they are doing I realise...

More tomorrow.   Think, remember, jot it down.