June
Paula is digging and shaping the loam of a salvia,
Scarlet Chinese talker of summer.
Two petals of crabapple blossom blow fallen in Paula's hair,
And fluff of white from a cottonwood.
Poems on the topic: garden
Poems on the topic “garden” on Poets.by.
Follies
Shaken,
The blossoms of lilac,
And shattered,
The atoms of purple.
Green dip the leaves.
Darker the bark.
Longer the shadows.
Sheer lines of poplar
Shimmer with masses of silver
And down in a garden old with years
And broken walls of ruin and story,
Roses rise with red rain-memories.
May!
In the open world
The sun comes and finds your face,
Remembering all.
To Anita the Gardener
In summer when my life was cold,
Frozen too weary for desire,
I warmed my heart at your marigold,
As at a fire.
It was the first flower from your new ground,
The first gold largess from the care
And loving, you had planted there,
And in the walks around.
I stole your garden's coin to buy content,
A vision of black earth dug deep for flowers.
Through sunny self-forgetful hours.
With joys, God meant.
In summer when my life was cold,
Frozen too weary for desire,
I warmed my heart at your marigold.
As at a fire.
Faith
I KEEP a bird in my heart,
He lives on sorrow,
His name is Faith.
He is so quick a conjurer that he can borrow
Flesh from a wraith.
He swallows the harsh weeds of pain
And gives me scope,
To tend my little garden-plot again
And wait for Hope.
The Trespasser
There is a little goblin in my tree.
He sits up high and mows at me.
He is so wicked, yet so small,
He makes my garden venturous, and my trees tall.
A Tulip Garden
Guarded within the old red wall's embrace,
Marshalled like soldiers in gay company,
The tulips stand arrayed. Here infantry
Wheels out into the sunlight. What bold grace
Sets off their tunics, white with crimson lace!
Here are platoons of gold-frocked cavalry,
With scarlet sabres tossing in the eye
Of purple batteries, every gun in place.
Forward they come, with flaunting colours spread,
With torches burning, stepping out in time
To some quick, unheard march. Our ears are dead,
We cannot catch the tune. In pantomime
Parades that army. With our utmost powers
We hear the wind stream through a bed of flowers.
In a Garden
Gushing from the mouths of stone men
To spread at ease under the sky
In granite-lipped basins,
Where iris dabble their feet
And rustle to a passing wind,
The water fills the garden with its rushing,
In the midst of the quiet of close-clipped lawns.
Damp smell the ferns in tunnels of stone,
Where trickle and plash the fountains,
Marble fountains, yellowed with much water.
Splashing down moss-tarnished steps
It falls, the water;
And the air is throbbing with it.
With its gurgling and running.
With its leaping, and deep, cool murmur.
And I wished for night and you.
The Tree of Scarlet Berries
The rain gullies the garden paths
And tinkles on the broad sides of grass blades.
A tree, at the end of my arm, is hazy with mist.
Even so, I can see that it has red berries,
A scarlet fruit,
Filmed over with moisture.
It seems as though the rain,
Dripping from it,
Should be tinged with colour.
I desire the berries,
But, in the mist, I only scratch my hand on the thorns.
Probably, too, they are bitter.
Left Behind
White phlox and white hydrangeas.
High, thin clouds,
A low, warm sun.
So it is this afternoon.
But the phlox will be a drift of petals.
And the hydrangeas stained and fallen
Before you come again.
I cannot look at the flowers,
Nor the lifting leaves of the trees.
Without you, there is no garden,
No bright colours.
No shining leaves.
There is only space,
Stretching endlessly forward —
And I walk, bent, unseeing.
Waiting to catch the first faint scuffle
Mise en Scene
When I think of you. Beloved,
I see a smooth and stately garden
With parterres of gold and crimson tulips
And bursting lilac leaves.
There is a low-lipped basin in the midst.
Where a statue of veined cream marble
Perpetually pours water over her shoulder
From a rounded urn.
When the wind blows.
The water-stream blows before it
And spatters into the basin with a light tinkling.
And your shawl — the colour of red violets —
Flares out behind you in great curves
Like the swirling draperies of a painted Madonna.
Spring Longing
The South wind blows open the folds of my dress.
My feet leave wet tracks in the earth of my garden.
The willows along the canal sing with new leaves turned upon the wind.
I walk along the tow-path
Gazing at the level water.
Should I see a ribbed edge
Running upon its clearness,
I should know that this was caused
By the prow of the boat
In which you are to return.
Hoar-Frost
In the cloud-grey mornings
I heard the herons flying ;
And when I came into my garden.
My silken outer-garment
Trailed over withered leaves.
A dried leaf crumbles at a touch.
But I have seen many Autumns
With herons blowing like smoke
Across the sky.
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