Near my house there is an empty lane,
A quick shortcut where the dogs shit
— Or so I thought when we were first acquainted.
Then the rains came and turned its parched weeds into splendour.

Dainty daisies, poppin’ poppies, wafts of jasmine.
Each day I visited so I could marvel:
How the grasses grew, rich and golden!
How the trees bowed, lush and shadowed!
I watched the heads of poppy ripen, waiting to tear off their brown lids and spill their blackened seeds.

Until one day the cutters came.
They made a massacre of it all.
And how I wept to see my garden razed,
The stubble stiff, the dog shit more foul than ever.

I hardly walk there anymore,
Maybe when I’m in a hurry.
I see the yellow flowers creeping in the corner,
⬞ ⬞ the crimson blossoms spotting here and there.
I know that resilience is our nature

But I can’t bear another heartbreak, when the cutters return with the rains.