Old greenhouse tap

Ruined greenhouse at Easton

 

 

The Old Greenhouse.

 

Drip! The droplet slowly builds, becoming pear-shaped,

hanging as from a thread at the grey spout of the grimy tap.

Drip! Into a damp patch in the dry infertile earth

irrigating a few strands of ivy hugging the crumbling bricks:

compelling regularity, a water-clock of abandonment.

How long since old gnarled hands,

nails impregnated with potting compost and plant juices,

held galvanised cans beneath its gush,

cleaned windows, watered seedlings or vines,

sluiced down the mossy path, obscured now

by debris and trailing brambles?

 

Drip! Measuring the minutes since Victoria reigned over us,

when aristocratic houses gave employment to a hierarchy of local lads

under the green thumb of the Head Gardener;

when peaches, apricots and grapes were produced for gracious tables

and camellias and bougainvillias led pampered lives

within the shelter of the broken walls.

Now only the snowdrop candles light the gloomy depths,

glisten amongst the sprouting nettles

beneath last year's ochre stalks, uncut, untrodden,

and brittle bones of willowherb

await the surge of rusty growth.

Drip! Onto the parched soil and terracotta shards,

onto dead leaves, a rotting handle from a trowel

and an illegible label.

 

Some of the glass is whole, or almost so,

stacked in irregular piles, bright, in places,

the scored edges showing inky blue and bottle green,

the mirror sheets distorting the reflections

of the empty ceiling of iron framework.

Elsewhere, the gleam is hidden under moss and lichen,

speckled with lime-saturated water, scattered with bird-shit:

robin, summer swallows and sparrows seeking dry-earth

for feather maintenance.

 

Drip! Drip! Drip!

Counting the days until money is found for restoration,

waiting for a time when seedlings once more will be pricked

into sweet loam and leaf-mould,

filling the old greenhouse with new life and new scents,

and the constant dripping of the tap will be stilled.

 

Done