Gardener's Lament

Deer eat agapanthus

Leafy hedges, saplings too

Whate’er is it they shouldn’t eat

They come in and chew.

You’d think the grass would be enough

To satisfy their needs

I wish they’d come into my yard

And free me of my weeds.

What has happened in the bush

To change their diet so

They never came and ate these things

Many moons ago.

It’s usually in times of drought

Our night invaders come

But with yards a year round smorgasbord

They find take-away on the run.

Once tall and leafy plant life

Screening blank brick walls

Are denuded now of waving fronds

And chewed down to their stalks.

My veggie plot’s abandoned

It used to yield a feast

But all it fed as years rolled by

Were nightly hungry beasts.

The possums strip the fruit trees bare

I’ve given up the thought

Of juicy summer nectarines

My efforts come to nought.

The wallabies get in the act

The pademelons too

I used to think that they were cute

But now I just yell ‘Shoo.’

Why don’t the deer cooperate

Chew things we have to trim

Work with us like the gardener

Why can’t they be like him?

Instead, they’re quite selective

As they wander yard to yard

A broad leaf here, a flower there

Making it so hard

To work out exactly what it is

They really cannot stand

Then plant that in profusion

To cut off their demand.

I never thought I would regard

The fallow deer a pest

Go eat your own bush greenery

Come on, give ours a rest.