Poem for the Day: I have always loved the word "Appaloosa" (after Judith Beveridge) ©

I have always loved the word "Appaloosa"
                           after Judith Beveridge

I have never shown kilometres of the garden
to the Garden Gurus or Gardening Australia.
They have never caught my hues of Cineraries, Roses,

Magnolias, or Chrysanthemums that lie in yellow hoops.
They have never wandered through my garden with
a camera lens hung from tilted lights, that might
behold Hepatica, Melleluca, Limonium bush,

stroking it – as you would a Percheron horse.
I have never called my plants Tequilana,
Eremophila, or Leptospermum. Such scientific,

trifling names one can never remember them.
I have never used potash, alkaline magnesium,
dynamic lifter or bleach (that reddens the nose).
I only use nature's spurs and silks from the

horse manure in the compost heap. I have
never picked Dryandra from the neighbour's
fence or lifted Wexford apples bouncing on the

hedge. I have never sold my orchids at the village
fair, touchy-feely hands on their perfect growth,
but I do keep bees, those busy little maniacs
harvesting honeycomb. Yet none of this shows

thumb or green unless I share and show; a star-
burst of colour on the page. Ah, but  more than
this, I have always loved the word "Forsythia."