Under the Puri Tree- A Real Estate Poem

Real Estate

Under the Puriri tree she placed a box
with ten small pieces of newspaper.

*

Months later, after rain,
she was in the garden mulching.

A small ruin of wet cardboard
sat beneath the Puriri tree,
corrugations standing out
like wet brown ribs.
In this decay ten clippings were stowed,
ten recipes cut from
the pages of the Herald.

*

When she died the house,
the Puriri tree, everything,
was put on the market - and bought.

*

The new owners found soggy-brown
rotting words in their garden.
Mingled in the soil were
ten different ways to make marmalade;
from using oranges, to
using lemons and grapefruit, to
using lime zest.

*

“Did you notice,” said the new lady,
“the people before us used newspaper
for compost.”

Pretty much all the honest truth telling in the world is done by children.
~ Oliver Wendell

[This message was edited by Fuzzies on 12-07-05 at 09:48 AM