The back yard was covered

in the miniature jungle

of moss, earth bound mold,

secret fortress for the Viet-Cong

and hiding holes

for the alien Predator, casually

smoking Park Drive cigarettes

as it polished the remains

of a once scurrying beetle

late for work no more.

 

I have had no reason to venture out there,

like my childhood, when wet

or not allowed to go near my father’s

guinea pigs for fear of upsetting them

as I crashed a decaying

football around the patch of grass we called

a garden, I was confined to the yard,

alright when you are seven,

the imagination ripe and fearful

enough to take toy soldiers

and lose them in the dense

grass sprouting its way

bravely through the cracks;

not so in your middle age down time,

there it is just a chore to do, to keep up

appearances and smile for the neighbours

who pick with obsessive delight

at the one soldier left

on the knot of wood on the fence.

 

Ian D. Hall 2017