Tart and tangy and a little bit ‘zangy’. Mixed in with cream, makes a frozen dream.

Tart & Tangy

Spring is here at long last,
Oh to break my rhubarb fast!
Stalks of succulent green and red
Used to grace my garden bed ,
Gone now to fate unknown
All the rhubarb I have grown!!

All The Rhubarb

I rue the day
rhubarb came my way

when people ask “what is the reason?”
I simply state: “too short a season”

Rue The Day

Rhubarb Pie

My bitter leaf; large and broad
stalk so red and sweet
Children to their mother’s arms wide
running, laughing to enjoy a treat
Cooling on the window I’m
baked in a pie the children greet
Dad is home from the hunt
his skill provides the family’s meat

Ruhubarb Pie

Early bird songs wake the day
and lilac on the air
the broad rough leaves are creeping
beyond my neighbours yards

This first plant I could allot
warms me with vibrant reds
And it’s hearty strength bares on
when all else in the plot has withered

I can’t help being heartened
that such a tart anything
could be so dearly cherished

First Plant

Spring’s first offering
Stocky, leafy, red and green
Tart, delicious treat!

First Offering

A rhubarb haiku
Has seventeen syllables:
Five, seven and five

Rhubarb Haiku

Rhubarb rhubarb rhu-
barb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb.
Am I being clear?

Rhubarb Repeated

Early Riser

Rhubarb, the first to rise this droughtful spring,
struggles up through drowsing ground weeks
before annuals even learn their names.

Driven out of formal gardens, its red periscopes
live rough in lanes, spread to vacant lots,
occupy sketchy alleys.

Rhubarb’s a thriver, her scalloped skirts flap
wider than a road, surpass neighbour weeds.
Desperate to be noticed, she pays her way
in leafage.

The odd gardener relents, chews and spits
a stalk or two, chops and cubes, sugars sauce.
There are never any takers.

Rhubarb the Artefact, housed in Gem jars, waits
in cellars, labels pasted on in a ghost aunt’s hand,
the day, the month, the year of preservation.

Early Riser

Rhubarb triggers up from a root
Into a stalk and a poison leaf
By the shade of cement a cavern grows
just in the spot beneath
where rhubarb rises against cement
and pushes it up unimpeded
In a wrong of land littered and sand
A germination lifts for its life undefeated

The Merry Dairy