My name is Podrigotumma and I'm also amazed when a poet can write about something very difficult

and do it in partnership with something that is filled with beauty.

And today's poem, A Man Loved With Plants by Jenny Mitchell, is one such poem because

it's a poem that recalls the murder of an uncle and puts that alongside the uncle's

love of plants.

Neither the brutality nor the beauty are diminished by being put alongside each other.

There is no sense of ease or lightening the load of guilt upon whomever had done this,

but there is a way of bearing witness to an uncle who died and who loved plants.

To do this in this powerful way, I think, is a reclamation of the public power of tender

language and that that in itself is an extraordinary demonstration of strength.

A Man In Love With Plants by Jenny Mitchell.

I'll start this by transforming his last words.

Help me please becomes I've gone upon a mission.

That's how my uncle spoke, each word precise, although he did not have much education,

his childhood drab is dirt as sailed the floorboards of a leaning shack.

Outside his final house, he worships life held in hibiscus buds, red as new spilled blood,

roses shade the path, yellow orchids make him beam, jasmine does the same even when a

gang plucks his last breath.

He lies as if awake feet aimed up at the ceiling, whole gaping through his golden suit,

self made a tailor since a child in love with floral cloth.

I know he'd seek more plants to bless his garden church beyond the house.

I love this simple heart-breaking, beautiful poem by Jenny Mitchell.

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