Other People’s Trees

Your neighbours’ trees should please more than your own. Beyond your hedge, each garden breathes into the next. What’s theirs is ours; what’s mine is his: magpie and collared dove can’t see a boundary only that blossom falls across a fence, spent leaves collect against your door. Even the plain drab conifer blocks out a light that in its turn obscures a star. Your car is still, beyond the escallonia. Defer that plan to pave the drive: forget the pressure-washer and embrace the dirt. Plant trees. Divert the eye. Bring evening on: its brimming dusk, one blackbird’s song…