NightWriter

MAN WITH FLOWERS

The old man, pottering in his garden,

Observes the nodding of the fronds,

Gentle as mist in the slightest breeze.

He has already buried both his wives,

One in a sanitarium, the other

Beneath the azaleas. Since those days

In the other world, it has been all inscape.

Days are measured in a flower's growth.

Season's end -- the brush, weeds and stalks

Are burned. After so long that fire assumes

Awesome dimensions for this man, who sets

It, watches it flare and waits with the sun --

Which outlives him and his plants.

He has become used to this existence,

Simple pleasures -- the last walk through

The poplars on the slope at dusk -- quietly.

Still, his mind occasionally loses track

Of petals, fruit and earth, and falls into

The sea from which he followed his course.

Sea-thunder shadows each uncertain step.

(from In Sight of Chaos, 1971, Turret Books, London)