☛ We are inviting submission in the field of literature and literary theory in the form of article, book review, poem, short story, travelogue and interview for our regular April issue (Vol. 6, No. 2). The last date for submission is 31 March, 2025.

MY GRAN’S GARDEN

 


MY GRAN’S GARDEN

 

-         Mike Jenkins (U.K.)

 

  • My gran’s garden stretched out like an estuary before me. 
  • From lawn to flower-beds , to trees and ramshackle shed
  • On to the once vegetable garden become wilderness.
  • Close to the house a metal tank of water,
  • Holes in the grass where a weasel used to raise its head at dawn like a periscope.
  • The corrugated iron and overgrown roof of a small bunker
  • Which was constructed because of the bombing of Barry docks.
  • I once retreated to the shed to revise and escape my gran’s constant questioning about day and time.
  • Further back , I climbed the conker tree and pretended not to hear my grandad calling me to go for tobacco up the corner shop.
  • The garden yielded almonds and hazelnuts ,but my grandad’s fruit bushes had withered. 
  • Long after my father kept a horse out there, my gran would gaze through the window and see it , roped to a tree.
  • My father sold the lot for a caravan , which ended up getting flooded somewhere on the south coast of England .
  • He blamed my grandparents for everything, especially the very sharp knives he wielded , threatening.
  • The garden becomes wilder in my memory : the concrete path stopping at a wire fence. A place where nobody else would venture .

 

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