Allotments

One has a crooked wooden hut
For housing boots and seeds and tools
Perhaps a little stool for thinking
Stooped while drinking in the sun

One has nets to foil the birds
And canes to bolster beans
Or foster blooms, some pots and tubs
And sacks of loam and peat

Some already neatly sown
With larder things awaiting spring
Cabbages and radishes
Later kale and chicory

They grow in reach of every king
But none would breach
The unfenced bound
Of any other’s kingdom

Sumangali Morhall
February 2005