
Don’t search just yet for the buried trowel, forgotten in a line of Ryecroft Purple (between Myatt’s Ashleaf and Ninetyfold). Let it dream untroubled dreams of Russet and Yukon Gold guided through shallow channels by unsentimental hands. Galaxies of seasoned earth it birthed in its time - star dust wrought by bronze blade - knowing times of late spring frost, corners of uncomplicated soil. A darker patch, barren, slumps beside espalier pears. Unloved by hand or trowel, melancholic, like an oboe unravelling the stout weave of a Brandenburg. Beyond, a gardener’s tabby snoozes in the Kennebecs. X marks the spot where undiscriminating roots cradle what once tended them. Autumn’s brutal fork will determine what is still owed to the old potato trowel and to ourselves, caught between fertility and the gathering cold.
Will Griffith is a secondary school teacher who is new to the craft of writing poetry. He is set to appear in a few forthcoming anthologies (FromOneLine by Konayaashi Studios, and Arcane Love by Spectrum of Thoughts). He has appeared in the online magazine The Organic Poet and writes short pieces regularly on Twitter and Instagram under the handle @BunglerBill.