My runner beans are climbing
Upwards to the apex
Of their bamboo wigwam
Despite their name
They do not run; they climb
Athletes run and rivers run
We run, not fill a bath
We run, not manage a business
And Germans laugh that English noses run
My beans spiral around their bamboo stake
Some take a time to find their foothold
Their tender shoots flap around until
Like a blind man probing with his cane
They find a secure home on which to cling
Sometimes I help a wayward shoot
By guiding it to the nearest cane
I notice that all shoot spiral counter clockwise
Their genes are programmed thus
I wonder if the same applies in the Southern Hemisphere
Or do beans climb clockwise in Australia?
I panicked when it appeared that the tip of one shoot
Had turned brown and dry
Was it diseased and dying?
Would all my wigwam beans suffer the same fate?
Happily on closer inspection
I discovered that the rotten tip
Was in fact an unremoved remnant of a last year’s bean
Long dead after providing boundless fruit
But not discarded from this year’s cane
Oh joy, my crop will not be “has beans”!
All is happy again