Anyone who enjoys gardening understands this poem, the feeling of planning for a garden of the future, digging, sowing, hoping, and then the temporary feeling of joy when the flowers appear. To be replaced again by the annual cycle of planning, digging and sowing. Wendy Cope obviously has a garden.

Because of copyright restrictions I am unable to reproduce the poem in full, but please search it out in an anthology or at your local library.

‘Tulips’
Months ago, I dreamed of a tulip garden,
Planted, waited, watched for their first appearance,
Saw them bud, saw greenness give way to colours,
Just as I’d planned them.

 

‘If I Don’t Know’ by Wendy Cope [UK: Faber] 

Read these other excerpts, and perhaps find a new poet to love:-
‘The Boy Tiresias’ by Kate Tempest
‘The Roses’ by Katherine Towers
‘Elegy of a Common Soldier’ by Dennis B Wilson

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
A #poem to read in the bath: ‘Tulips’ by Wendy Cope http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2Uo via @SandraDanby

SaveSave