What would you say if you were told where exactly you would be allowed to reside? There is no choice given. How tall or wide you could get determines your chance of survival. What you eat, how you look, your coloring, how you smell, are all subject to one person’s wishes. When you could have babies or even how long you could live was not up to you at all. In fact, just about any habit or proclivity was selected for you. One strike and you’re out. That would be an absolutely terrifying nightmare right?

Yet, we gardeners do it all the time. Just ask the plants in our gardens.

Persecution Complex

Gardeners are bullies
They take nature
create faux naturelle
Steadfast conviction
A false heaven
from a perceived hell.

Controlling, suppressing
Evicting all not selected
those neither lovely nor rare
Cajoling, coaxing
favoring the beautiful
with attention and prayer.

Dictating designs
color schemes and shapes
to suit personal tastes
Taming independent tendrils
relegating the unsuitable
to the compost waste.

Plants submit
to ruthless acts
that test and torture
But who is true master here,
the one with secateurs
or that which enraptures?
– Shobha
‘Controlled chaos in the meadow
‘Bounded’ by borders
‘Trained’ espalier trees
‘Designated’ to climb the gazebo
‘Caging’ the peonies
‘Forcing’ bulbs
(c)2015 Shobha Vanchiswar
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