The Last Country Garden

A brown roadside sign with white letters
Establishes, for outsiders, enough;
The name of the estate and ‘Gardens’ -
Beckoning off the B road
Somewhere between Ross and Hereford.
A mid-afternoon diversion before
The caravan and the kids and
Those demands and distractions.

We’d mutually agreed to leaving
Them in the car with their electronics
While we strolled the property.
Before turning down a single track
Towards the Wye Valley;
A tunnel of fecund trees heralded
Early Summer, but also isolation.
The village was nowhere to be seen.

The car park, a gravel patch next
To crumbling outbuildings, once majestic,
Was empty and available, with but
Three other cars (no teens in them;
Ours would be pioneers, if
Not prisoners. Would anyone care?)
A drowsiness filled the space as
I pulled into mine.

On through a brick arch to
The tea room and the eight quid
Admission and two-sided
A4 describing the gardens.
I pocketed the last glossy
Brochure informing of same,
Already suspecting we’d happened
Upon fallen grandeur.

Then ambling up a bucolic
If tarmac-cracked avenue between
Singular trees to the top-of-hill entrance
To the gardens, a gentle bend to
The left and you asked for
The descriptions; a querulous
Tone to keep me occupied and
Focused; in the moment.

Then a grassy descent to
The first level, ‘The Dell’, with
Its ancient stone cider press a
Central feature. You perked up
Then; revived from an afternoon
Of subtle disappointment… them,
And me, again not showing Care,
Appreciation, Love.

The gardens offered escape; a
Moment to chat about it (the
Horticulture that used to be)
Instead of them, or us. We’re
Both still tongue-tied in our
Avoidance of that which
Grows over us. Cutting back
Seems a long way off.

‘It’d take an army
Of gardeners to put it right’
You murmured, and I
Assented, noting the
Unkempt scene. An army
Marched through our past:
‘Loved ones’, vicars, counsellors…
And a lot of good they did. I mean that.

The garden had suffered neglect,
Disease, disorientation. Yes,
The Dell was just a lawn
Bordered by more interesting trees, so we
Shuffled down a narrow slope,
Onto ‘The Old Tennis Courts’;
Room for two, now traversed by the
Ghosts of Edwardian garden parties.

Uphill behind the pavilion, the manor house;
Lived-in but lifeless, its
Multiple windows a honeycomb of
Empty eye sockets. We played tennis
Early in our marriage, but then
The kids, the jobs, and the
Just-not-inclined. A further downward incline
Led on to ‘The Rose Pool.’

The A4 sheet described what followed as
‘A Sunken Florentine Garden with
A simple cruciform pattern of deep rills.’
At this point print didn’t
Matter; yet again words
Belittled the reality
Of this
Desperate situation.

The rills were browned-under with dead
Leaves beneath several inches
Of turgid water, and the statues
Could have cared less.
Further downhill, behind trees, before us,
The Wye, a turgid rill itself,
Made its way south.
We turned to make our way uphill.

For that slog we needed to pass up
Through four levels of
The Terrace Garden; I moved
Ahead of you while you took pictures.
Each level separated us by
A rose-branched brick wall with
An arched passage to
The next level of plantings.

I turned to locate you at
The level below, your face obscured
By the camera. I moved up,
You moved to one side
And disappeared. These gardens were
Well-tended but still in
Early-summer barrenness.
Then you appeared at the next arch.

Here, near the end, I
Went back in my mind, again, to
Milan. Our first home, its
‘Va benes’ and ‘molto benes’ and
Choked clogged Tangenziale, but
Our terrace with its flower pots and looking
Beyond, the rice fields to the Abbazia
Mirasole, medieval nursery for monks.

Luigi next door blasting
Puccini off his terrace while you
Turned up The Archers on that
Dinky cassette player. Like Mussolinis, we escaped
North to Como, especially Bellagio, with its
Palazzi, terraces cascading with bright
Fiore, and the alpine lake a lavender
Blue. There was potential then.

Back down to town,
We visited that monks' refectory with
Leonardo’s resplendent garden; its
Cracked plaster under desperate renovation
By art history grads on scaffolding
Before spotlights. We could only stare
From the back; what care-
Que vita.

At the top, you joined me
Next to that trim chapel and we entered
The courtyard again. Sometimes journeys
Take us back to where we started but we
Arrive with a different perspective. Still
Deserted, we returned to the car through
A final arch. Left the bored girl and the fluttering
A4s. The cream teas would have to wait.

We found the fruits of our sowing;
Thumbs still on gadgets. Brief
Wan smiles, showing, ‘Hardly noticed
You gone.’ It’s right to leave
Some garden to seed. Fallow, regenerating,
Absorbing sheets of English rain.
It might come back with
Something better than before.

Here It Is

I went in search of Happiness
I heard it was around
And if I listened well enough
I'd hear a Happy sound.

I tried to look for Happiness
I'd seen a glimpse before
But when I ran to see its face
It closed its Happy door.

So then I stopped
I gave up trying
Then it came to me
In simple life
There's no denying
Here: just hear and see.

Island Solo (Outward Bound, Penobscot Bay)

A sturdy craft comes alive under the boards,
As if in recognition of familiar waters.
The night's dark splash is ignited with phosphorescence
And trails away, bubbling in distinctive chords.

The stern red beam of a lighthouse
Asserts an invisible shoreline,
And warns of an imminent landfall
Through ledges, 'bricks' and 'No Man's Land',
Towards ill-defined sentinels of birch and pine.

A granite island looms behind darkness' deceptive vision,
But safe haven promises a gentler welcoming.
Empty moorings and trim wooden shacks
Legitimize at once the navigational decision.

The unwieldy blocks and obelisks are as marvelous as those
At Stonehenge and Easter Island,
For they hold in their gargantuan impassivity a story
And a mystery, perhaps,
Of a time when human spirit and endeavor arose.

But in daylight, the ruins beg a question or two.
Jumbled heaps of stone are scattered about;
Here and there stand unfamiliar sculptings and carvings,
And the ghost of a quarry where industry grew.

Will a future civilization look at these ruins and wonder
At such a chaos of pioneering landscape architecture?
(Or ask why foundations are now choked with wildflower,
Or for what purpose an island's marrow was torn asunder?)

It seems we hack and hew at nature, as at each other,
Not envisioning the questions that may be asked later.
Meaningless blocks, we strew haphazardly on our paths
For others to interpret, if they bother.

Leaving the island before sunrise, the red light is dim,
The phosphorescence gone.
But my understanding has been enlightened
By the granite, and by other builders
Who serve, strive and never yield
In their quest for a reconstructed dawn.

One Night on the Ridge

Immeasurable stars over night's mountains
Challenge the eye to identify patterns
In scattered plentitude, like mist from Roman fountains;
Constellated confusion of a million Saturns.

The face, a pale moon itself, beams upward to seek meaning,
While still maples hide behind night's cloak;
Puffs of breath blur the clarity of each star's gleaming
But re-affirm life... then dissipate, like a comet's smoke.

Stars won't share their sound with us,
But their fires spark our perceptions of time and distance
And stoke our mythologies of a belt, or of a necklace,
Making light the impediment of gravity's resistance.

Our planet glows only in reflecting another star,
As we stand on this chemical stew we call dirt.
Speculating on the light reaching us from afar;
The fastest we know of, yet seemingly inert.

Our miracles are out of reach and comprehension
Yet we crave them no less than when we didn't know as much.
Disbelief and belief: both held in willing suspension,
While spiritual guides provide us the necessary crutch.

It's enough to believe in one another on this humble globe,
Although we know only as much as we know Mars.
We leave it to blind faith to guide each probe,
And hope for a beacon as bright as a star's.

West of Boston

Streaks of sun filter through bare pines;
Proud sentinels from an earlier age.
You turn your eyes upward to those vertical lines,
As dusk tempers another day's languid rage.

Here in nature's heart, your true peace,
The honeysuckle emerges with each warm Spring.
Snow and rain preordain such release,
And give way to May winds' beckoning.

Deep in the woods we find in our lives,
The pine needles offer little comfort underfoot.
Errant bees pester, then retreat to their hives,
As we, too, retreat: to our cities, and their soot.

One hopes, then, for blessing, for those
Who find blessed meaning in a wooded walk;
Who take the time to anticipate the rose,
And leave all behind to hear the pine trees' talk.

Warren Cove

I watch the sea
Come alive on the beach;
It's a newborn child
Testing her reach.

I watch the tide
(Slave to the moon);
Climbing the breakwater,
Fading too soon.

I watch evolution,
Alive in the Cove;
Symbiosis,
'Neath the waves and above.

Fall

The streetlight casts its pallid glow
Upon my lonely sill,
As through my mind the memories go;
I fear they always will.

The plumbing rings its hollow knell
Beneath my empty floors;
I thought I knew her very well,
But she's on distant shores.

High in the night, an airplane hums
Above my earthbound woes;
The bread we had has turned to crumbs,
But why? - well, neither knows.