An Australian Gardener's Thanksgiving

An Australian Gardener’s Thanksgiving

Summer’s cornucopia overflows with gifts

And garden delights are offered fresh each day,

At the altar of long days; grateful, my heart lifts.

So that this cornucopia overflows with gifts

The summer-dry’s combatted with mains water spray

And shrouds of shade-cloth in massive tented drifts.

At the altar of long days, grateful, my heart lifts,

To pick the tender beans, tomatoes ripe and basil spray,

Even darkest moods this bounty lightly shifts.

And as this cornucopia overflows with gifts

The birdsong in the trees is a loud hooray

For life. I drink the sweet rose scent in sniffs.

At the altar of long days, grateful, my heart lifts.

Though sun-burnt plants shrivel sometimes and die

Though disease attacks, or laden fruit tree rifts,

Yet I am glad each spring to obey

The call to plant, and tend and work the clay

So summer’s cornucopia will overflow with gifts

And at the altar of long days, grateful, my heart lifts.

©Tina Shettigara 2015