It's time, my little raised bed garden.
This is the year I’ll plant the seeds,
and you will have them grow
a copious crop of carrots, peas and such
as I have yet to determine.

No more a fallow field of failed fecundity,
unfilled, unfulfilled… fill in the blanks.
In fairness, also faultless, as it was I who –
in seasons past – failed to plant the seeds.

A battlefield devoid of bullets.
I did not engage the enemy weeds.
No tanks rolled in to claim the ground,
no trenches dug to shelter in. 
I fled, falling, failing, foiled, felled…
so many four-letter f-words can apply.

A shallow grave without a body, living or dead.
Unsullied by shovels, spared of spades 
that may have turned up sweet surprises,
or skeletons with bleached, broken bones and 
smiling skulls. 

But not this year!
This year I will 
quell the weeds, 
plant the seeds,
and watch my 
raised bed garden grow. 

It’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo)!

Day Twenty-Five prompt from NaPoWriMo.net: write a poem in which you use at least three metaphors for a single thing, include an exclamation, ruminate on the definition of a word, and come back in the closing line to the image or idea with which you opened the poem.

I didn’t ruminate on definitions, I suppose, but I had fun playing with words!