When I go up through the mowing field,
The headless aftermath,
Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,
Half closes the garden path.
And when I come to the garden ground,
The whir of sober birds
Up from the tangle of withered weeds
Is sadder than any words.
A tree beside the wall stands bare,
But a leaf that lingered brown,
Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought,
Comes softly rattling down.
I end not far from my going forth
By picking the faded blue
Of the last remaining aster flower
To carry again to you.
A winter garden in an alder swamp,
Where conies now come out to sun and romp,
As near a paradise as it can be
And not melt snow or start a dormant tree.
It lifts existence on a plane of snow
One level higher than the earth below,
One level nearer heaven overhead,
And last year’s berries shining scarlet red.
It lifts a gaunt luxuriating beast
Where he can stretch and hold his highest feast
On some wild apple tree’s young tender bark,
What well may prove the year’s high girdle mark.
So near to paradise all pairing ends:
Here loveless birds now flock as winter friends,
Content with bud-inspecting. They presume
To say which buds are leaf and which are bloom.
Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies,
That though they never equal stars in size,
(And they were never really stars at heart)
Achieve at times a very star-like start.
Only, of course, they can’t sustain the part.
you'll come to this, lovingly rooting
in earth, gently setting to one side
fat worms, watching them
sink from sight with shrugs of their nonexistent
shoulders. As your wrists dry up, caked
in clay, you'll look around you, and
your small red barn, your irises,
your bamboo patch, your ash and oak,
your three unfurling maples whispering in the breeze,
your white house bracketed in lilacs, breathing
smoke, your woodshed stacked with fir,
your mint and parsley putting on new life,
your pears and apples, your geese in their bright plumes
will bring to you the thought of what this is
that you are digging, bit by troweled bit.
Assuming that the clouds will come, which now
this is what you'll come to, picking about
in earth, pulling morning glory roots
like long white worms and heaping them
beside you of a morning: you will become
distant and glum, and as your wrists dry up,
caked in clay, you'll look around you, and
not your small red barn, your irises,
your bamboo patch, your oak and ash,
your three brave maples rattling in the breeze,
your small house bracketed in lilacs, breathing smoke,
your woodshed stacked roof-high,
your mint and parsley putting on new life,
your geese, your ducks, your pear trees in bright bloom
will rid you of the thought of what this is
that you are digging, bit by troweled bit.
Assuming the sun will come out, which now
walks between the beds
critical of eye, noting the way the leaves
of corn have curled upon themselves,
rattling in hardly any breeze at all.
They'd like to make believe it's Autumn now,
would they? Playing at getting past the part
where seed heads form, waving their silky hair,
and then depart, leaving the leaves bereft
of any purpose but to leave this world --
except, of course, they don't: that is the gift
of mulch. She brings the hose and couples to
its end a yellow whirligig, made to sing
the holy song of water to the leaves.
Today, green fullness. Tomorrow, living grain.
Wren leads the charge,
her small soldier heart.
Follow her flitting sound
into the lowest corridors
This is not a universe,
It is a garden.
Trees,
a hierarchy of halls,
halls, a universe to sing.
Follow wren’s sound
into the lowest corridors.
There,
a huge gap, fox
-made,
is where blackbirds sing.
Stone-plateaued,
not much more
red and yellow tomatoes
behind a string fence
in the heart a deep
well laughter
ecstacy
sometimes lovers tap it
then kick each other out
with tales of unwashed spoons
or feet or
too-familiar flesh
but it is they
theirs forever we
in our still
presentness
your image fades behind
new furniture and talk
but I'd know you even
without words or eyes
when we moved here it was
so tiny now it spreads and spreads
up to the window
covering streets houses,
blocking out light yet somehow
our rooms are bright
growing sideways artful hardy
protecting us from
others' eyes and driveways, cars
guarding our windows
once tiny like our
neighbours' children who
once visited grew into
teenagers too old to come
or like we and our neighbours
growing grey
In a garden's grave, life remains: beets
Never pulled may be pulled now, to boil
And put back, for the flock to discover;
Greens have carried on and are taken
And dehydrated, or left for the goose to strip;
Red highlights show missed tomatoes;
Dense thickets of dead vines give beans.
Even the weeds, that had defeated her,
Now yield rich heads of seed for hens.
She walks about, coat-wrapped, scanning
Ground for spuds rolled out by hen feet.
Rarely, rewardingly, a ripe winter's squash
Awaits discovery. Gone to seed last year,
Viable chard and kale erupt now
Even as it were March, and are welcomed.
Little remains of her apple crop,
The last three summers, as she recalls them,
Her heavy-clay bit of earth opened hexagonally;
Into the depths she stared, seeing dry darkness
So desiccated, she fancied worms and millipedes
In despair had decamped, seeking other worlds.
She poked at crevasses with her stick, finding bottom
Well deeper than twelve inches. Not knowing
How to garden in any but a rain forest, she
Attacked books and websites for some scheme
The budget could be stretched for: shade cloths,
Raised beds, huge-log hugelkulturs, keyhole beds.
All were possible, but her hands, old, worked
In fits and starts; her money allocated elsewhere.
Now she startles, looking at her night sky, so steeped