Two Gardens

The brown garden of late dawn
In late winter: brown as old prints of the past.
The fertile soft fog with beads on every bush
Haunts here today with a white face.
Autumn is long gone but which season is which here?
The old leaves are still stuck to the lawn.
It’s too late to catch up with raking,
The leaves meld under the trunks.

This garden was never like Stream House garden,
Bought to fulfil the heart’s desire:
The swans nested there, the copper beech was on fire,
The gardeners were paid, the espaliers pruned,
And the mower was tuned for an ideal summer.
But who was happy there? Illness and war.
For twenty years they owned the garden of Eden
...