May Proliferations

I sometimes dread May - the garden explodes with life, flowers yes but also weeds and I cannot bear it - an uncontrolled untrammeled mess - reflecting perhaps the chaos in my head pre-poem, inter-collection, running up to the deadline of commission - which is the place I am now. But I cannot bear to pull the weeds. I even feel apologetic about the dandelions - although I do pull these knowing the fluff from their seeds will float not only all over my garden but my neighbour's.

Currently the garden is a glorious chaotic riot of colour as daffodils persist, forget me nots invade, pink, white-rimmed, orange, red etc tulips tower in all sorts of unexpected places, submerging the hyacinths, and then the other flowers that I have forgotten I planted and forgotten the names of also surprise. Going away for a few days is a treat because when I come back the colour has changed in all sorts of unexpected ways. But I have a struggle with the dandelions, the ragwort which as a responsible horse lover I feel obliged to pull is lurking and the foxgloves seem to proliferate every year - when is too much foxglove? Already the ferns are shooting up, curling their ends, and the plum tree is in a sulk, still straggly despite my crude efforts at pruning last year and definitely refusing to blossom while continuing doggedly to branch and branch and branch.

I am that plum tree - I don't want to write even though I know I must and must produce by next week. Not poems anyway. I am busy on a monograph about the thickness of language, reading Tolkien, Wittgenstein, Nick Humphrey, William James. I wading into it thickly and more thickly, and the creative elements don't seem to get much of a look in apart from the occasional haiku (what a saving grace that little form is and the Yorks/Lancs Haiku group which every month call me to produce at least one for their northern peripatetic meeting).

What I am proud of is my thin roadside verge, not really mine but not really anyone's - unadopted they say. So I've provisionally adopted it. Previously it was a tarmacky gravelly thin scattering of soil but now it is green with fern, dandelion (I allow them here this wonderful glowing flower), an occasional nettle - thinned by me, grasses, and other wild flowering weeds. This year it also had snowdrops, now forget me nots and a even a few tulips - more next year as I realize the battle with the squirrels is not fought on the road - they prefer privacy for their tulip and hyacinth robberies. Perhaps this is all I am doing at the moment, finding a place for creation where the squirrels won't rampage. And perhaps my unusually quiet calm demeanor in front of an impending deadline is a reflection of a deep certainty that the creative well will well and well in time and timely if I actively wait.

May explosions can't be controlled, not by me at least, but enjoyed and worked with - letting them take their own rhythm and very speedy pace with an occasional encouragement to shape and direction  seems to be the way forward (not forgetting the RHS expert gardener I know I can call in if things get too jungly - although I am not yet sure what form that takes when I thinking of poetry commissions!?)