The rake's progress

There was some lying in the long grass

but there was also an awful lot of

 raking.

The Retirement Home garden consists chiefly

of parched brown earth

and rocks and stones,

all of which have to be smoothed away

in time for the arrival of the turf.

Luckily there is always the chance that the rake will turn up 

a clay pipe, an old bottle, a button or some shards

of blue and white.

I find it quite therapeutic.

And when it gets too hot to be therapeutic

I go inside and eat cherries.

Tinker, tailor, soldier, raker,

rich man, poor man, beggar man,

thief.