Guide to Giving Ten Percent (A Golden Shovel)
(After Gwendolyn Brooks and bone folder press)
A section of neglected weeding. We
leave a bed waiting on mulch, while real
pruning’s put off til the next cool
morning. Seeds sown when we
still have a sliver of season left.
The garden isn’t grading our school
work. The garden asks that we
tend it rather than mope or lurk,
and a little delay’s better than too late.
29 thoughts on "Guide to Giving Ten Percent (A Golden Shovel)"
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This is a delightfully effective golden shovel. Love it!
I can’t believe I pulled it off!
Was just good timing and the right concept.
Thank you.
Great message in your poem.
Gardens hold so many great messages.
I’m lucky I get to listen and look for them.
The rhyming breakdown of what the garden is and is not asking was really cool to read. Great poem!
Thank you!
Credit to “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks for the rhyming lineup.
Her birthday is June 6 or 7, along with Nikki Giovanni!
Enjoyed this poem about your gardening and more…
Thank you, my friend!
“A little delay is better than too late.” Words to live by.
My grandmother used to say “is never too late to learn something new”
Tabitha! – Way to integrate GB’s poem into yours! You did pull it off, girl! I used to teach this one – always loved the word “lurk.” Very inventive path into poetry.
Oh I’m so touched to hear your own connection to the original poem.
That’s a favorite and a half.
Love the last stanza and how it stays with you, excellent work
Thanks– I had to make the words match up to Gwendolyn Brooks and it helped!
Ooh, well done!
Awww, appreciate it.
Having a hobby outside of literature and good inspiration for a poem helps!
This works so well! It flows and is a tribute to Brooks, too. I LOVE Golden Shovels!!
Thank you very much.
I’m going other LexPoMo poets will have success with their own Golden Shovels this month.
nicely done—you made something genuinely new with the lines, which is hard to do. you also managed to choose a line that gave you no odd line break. huzzah!
Thank you! I enjoyed writing it so much.
I’ve battled some procrastination lately, and it’s interesting how that compares and contrasts to the independence celebrated in Brooks’ poem.
I love how you place the tribute to “we real cool” here and the truth of “The garden asks that we/tend it”
I love your use of language in this poem. So beautiful!
You know– I read it again with this in mind.
Thank you for that!
Thank you so much.
Having a garden and being able to work with one of my favorite poems are two of the things I’m most humble by. And in awe of.
Wow, was out of the know about the golden shovel. Thanks for shedding light on this for me. Great poem!
Using the words shovel and shed(ding) feels like a good pun!
You’re welcome and I hope you write one.
Love: A section of neglected weeding.
A guide to giving 10 percent is such a sweetly cheeky title!
Have bone folder press to thank!