Tomato

In my drive to self sufficiency
Indoor gardening appealed to me,
So I hung them in the windowsill,
Ingredients 3.

I knew it was a risk to put
The basil with the rosemary
But I figured one would thrive
And which didn't really matter to me.
What I didn't figure on, though
Was the overgrown triffid tomato tree

It started as a sturdy branch,
Hopeful, healthy, heavenly scented,
Enjoyed the cyclical drown and parch
Of a suntrap windowbox well vented.

Past the window and round the corner,
The tentacles claimed the wall.

And now a fruit is dangling, heavy
Promise-green of future feast.
Tantalising, tempting beauty
It grows each day and whispers “eat me”
As I wash the dishes underneath.

Musings on Time

The time it slips, it slips away.

Handfuls of sand through fingers greying and shrinking inside their skins, knuckles gnarled and buckled through a practical lifetime's abuse.

Decades come and go so slow by day, so fast by year. You blink and find yourself awakening here. So far from then on paper and so vividly recent in memory. 
When understood and appreciated fully they lack that fog of nostalgia by which comforting versions of events are often obscured. Reassuringly, this means pain is also racing in retrograde, flying us away from it in bated breath taken at treacle-light speed.

My knees are mechanical now - gristly grinding each gesture in echoing growls. My barometric blood gives me warnings through the aches of coming rains.

I recognise my lifetimes by the shade of my hair in photographs, my dress size from outfits of mismatched clothes donated by long lost friends. Some I miss, some I am relieved to have had riddance, but all I cherish.

Is this aging?

It certainly feels like growth.