My Garden Sanctuary

There is nothing neat about it;
briars and nettles abound
so thick you use your feet
to find some solid ground.

It’s a wild jungle for cats
and a leafy forest for deer,
a green sanctuary. That’s
where I disappear,

where poetry is the spin-
drift of the green dream,
the loose change in
the pocket of time;

the swirl of cream in the coffee in your cup
and the froth in the bottom of mine.

Kim M. Russell, 24th May 2021

My response to earthweal weekly challenge: Sanctuary

This Monday Brendan tells us about a ‘megalithic park’ his father spent decades building in Eastern Pennsylvania, called Columcille, which Brendan says resonates with the ‘simple yet precious sense of sanctuary’, where ‘the veil between I and Thou is the faintest’. His memories of this place of sanctuary took him further to the isle of Iona, Stonehenge, and to the past and religion.

Our challenge is to write about Sanctuary: the places nearby where we find the communion and forgiveness and renewal of sanctuary; how it is created and with whom it is shared; and what can be done to ensure it grows into a deeper communion for generations to come. He has shared a poem by Mary Oliver from the Eco-Poetry Anthology as inspiration for our poems to work toward the same end.

26 thoughts on “My Garden Sanctuary”

  1. This sounds like my kind of garden Kim: wild and overgrown and bursting with poetry! In Rydal Mount, Wordsworth wanted a ‘wild-looking’ garden, in contrast to the formal gardens of stately homes. It still has that feel to it if you ever get the chance to visit!

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  5. There it is. How fortunate you don’t have far to go “where poetry is the spin-/ drift of the green dream, /
    the loose change in / the pocket of time.” Do you compose outside in your garden?

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    1. Sometimes I go out into the garden with the germ of a poem, sometimes I find one out there. But I don;’t need to go out really as I have a great view from my study

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    1. Our neighbours have hens. One used to escape and visit our garden – we have more weeds and worms than they do, and our garden s much bigger! They’ve increased security since a fox appeared.

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