I do not own this garden
A poem by Richard Wain
I do not own this garden
This soil is not mine
It arrived here indirectly
Through the slow mail of time
Twisted layers of sediment
A thousand tonnes of clay
Magma fields and scraping ice
All shaped the land this way
I do not own this garden
Or all that thrives within
No deed can give these lives to me
Their unbound flourishing
Nature knows no boundaries
Picket fences of barbed wire
Life has always been the landlord
All our freeholds will expire
I do not own this garden
But I do own the choice
To treat what lives with kindness
And to give that life a voice