New Brooms...

When we come back from the garden centre,

where I bought a stiff bristly yard broom

with a long sturdy handle,

he sits at the dining room table 

wearing a giant bib,

one like my mother used to wear in 

the care home, 

except hers was hyacinth blue plaid and his is

grass green plaid.

He watches me at the kitchen counter

 weigh out porridge oats and 

desiccated coconut,

dried cranberries and pumpkin seeds

while he chews, slowly slowy, each small spoonful of chopped up lunch

that I scoop into his mouth,

a mush of hummus and egg mayonnaise

avocado and tomato.

When I start chopping up the whole almonds to press on top of the

 tray of sticky flapjack mixture,

I ask  him

Do you remember chopping up nuts when we used to make 

biscuits together?

 I was thinking particularly about the granite hard logs of biscotti he loved to make

when he still had the use of his hands.

I do, he says. 

And he smiles.

Can I have a flapjack?

When they are cooked. When they are cool. I say, deflecting him.

Later, while he sleeps upstairs, my friend arrives

with her trug of secateurs and gardening gloves 

and a trowel

to help me with the wildness and the weeds.

But first I make  us 

a pot of fragrant 

lemon balm tea,

picked from one of the going-to-seed bushes

in the garden

as I need to sit a bit after my hectic 

morning,

in and out of the car,

in and out of shops,

all that dressing and undressing

in and out of bed,

feeding and peeing.

More than anything I want to hear about 

my friend's life - 

someone else's trials 

and triumphs - 

as I'm weary of the relentless 

saga of my own.

When another angel arrives and drives off

with him in her car

for a two hour adventure,

 and with a supply of fruit smoothies,

to avoid cups of tea in cafes,

we start tackling the weeds and the wildness. 

While I cut out dead wood and

re-wind  triffid honeysuckle through trellis,

 she scrapes away years of moss and slipperiness

rooted in the circular brick path 

at the end of the garden,

exposing the handiwork of its original design.

And then she 

sweeps it 

clean

and clear 

with my new 

ready-for-anything

yard broom.