The red rose stem’s thorn carve red crescent moons
across the barbed sky of my unworn palms

as I plunge them below surface stillness
to the roots of life’s fruit, the master calls

Gardening is no mean feat, you know,.
it takes its toll – but those who do it, grow hope.

Years later, with hands like bark, do I slowly realise
a shrub is no shrub; a shrub is the start of Eden

paradise on earth begins with a thistle, some seeds
and the smell of fresh soil in the morning light.

Forthcoming in the Oxford Review of Books