I think of her now, how she loved gardens,
and the genuine grace of her soul
That word she used for the slate of human construction,
calling here and there to smallish birds
Black dahlias, illustrative envelopes of sound,
things no listening can hear
The Cana Lilly, the big flowers failed states
in the small corners we call we weeds,
Dove blue gods that let every sparrow
fall with parasols, from the opulence of their death,
Marigolds, young and disenfranchised, destitute,
payless wanderlusts, half the age of the sun,
Secret credulities of hybrids, upstart redacted notions,
of what a flower might say
Were it to salute the queen bee,
as its rump pollinates the whole,
On the day we have risen into missionary position,
forgetting the frugalities of war,
Speechless as a seed, rounded vowels bootstrapped
to the tigers, crouched in the undergreen,
Strong colours for the wireless calling,
the shyness haunting the internecine affair,
And in the ravine, singer of the olive tree,
orchards illuminated, a dais of waifish sea
Crawling the waves stoked by dawn,
limericks of dancing leprechauns and an unctuous breeze,
Couched behind words unspoken, in the back rooms
of ivory towers, unloved and unheard.