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Gourd Totem
In 2016 I had an allotment, where a passion for gourds started.
I grew butternuts, pattypans, tromboncinos, cucumbers, pumpkins, courgettes, cucamelons and more!
The shape, the flowers, the leaves, the twirly frongs - I loved everything about them.
And so, when I gave the allotment up, I decided to make a totem of gourds for my garden...
It took 2 years to make and I enjoyed every minute.
A lot of my work is influenced by these amazing squashes and I still grow them in my garden and use the leaves for my pumpkins and for pressing into clay.
The Ornamental Gourd
By
Lorraine Mammone
There are squashes galore all over the floor,
Under the huge green leaves!
There’s Butternuts and pattypans
and ones that could deceive!
Some are long and some are fat
The pumpkins wear their stalks like hats!
They wind around the bamboo cane
There is no way you could contain
their curly fronds
each searching for
something to grab
While they explore
Yellow blooms entice the bees
To pollinate the squash with ease
Rolling in the trumpet heads
bags of pollen on their legs
But what are these?
Have they a purpose?
Ugly things
growing in surplus!
Nothing like the pattypans - Inedible, I understand!
Their skins are tough
with warty lumps!
Their necks are long
or short with bumps!
The calabash is also called
Trumpet, Birdhouse, Bottle gourd!
The butternuts and pattypans
sneer at the gourds,
because they can
Produce such rich and tasty dishes,
The ugly gourds have only wishes
Winter comes
and all that’s left
is compost on the naked beds,
The starling clouds
in murmuration
eerie in their congregation.
Sitting in the house of glass
waiting for the time to pass
Are these ugly aberrations,
peculiar malconformations.
But their abnormalities
and irregularities
Over seasons shift and change
Dry and hollow they became.
Now, they become
an ornament
bestowing an embellishment!
Their reputation gone to pot!
Unattractive they are not!
Carved and painted
decorated
Glamorized!
accessorized!
These gourds are worth their weight in gold!
They have a purpose
so behold!
Do not recoil from their design
their whole idea is quite sublime!
Quite marvelous what you can do
With an ugly gourd
Or two.