A Poem a Day (572): Silver

 
Silver
 
We live in huge houses with dead-straight lawns,
grass neatly trimmed around right-angled edges.
See the freshly mowed lines stride out, alternate
light and dark, looking ruled and measured.
 
Robins and blue tits launch at the iron feeders,
wings a-flutter as they take their lunch to go,
speckling the ground with morsels for squirrels,
while sparrows take a sand bath in the sun dial.
 
The orange-yolk sun clouds over, clouds off,
and our skin bristles hot and cold in surprise.
Sunglasses put on, sunglasses put down;
we are changeable, like the weather.
 
Our lapdogs doze by the back door, on food patrol,
smelling of perfume and talc, neatly combed.
Pride of joy is the pink rosebush blooming neatly,
the focal point of our little groomed escape pod.
 
Our home, more visibly a mansion, stands alone
to attention, every tree pruned, every hedge scalped,
a green sculptured horse a-freeze in mid-gallop.
Seeking adventure, its visa was cancelled.
 
All the wildness has been sheared or fumed away.
Even the bees have their own section, minute flats
built of wood, manufactured cut-out honeycombs,
while the golden Koi navigate sprouting lily pads.
 
Windows upon windows upon windows stare out,
too many rooms for one person to clean,
too many rooms to actually live in,
so empty they sit in their pristine perfection.
 
A sudden newsflash on the iPad flies images
of a drought in a far-flung part of the globe,
and we pause in our reflection of the garden,
reach for our mobile phones, text in a code.
  
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, March 25, 2023

This isn't my house! In London a lot of us have a room, and too many people don't even have that.