The Garden Before Rain
The garden holds its stillness as a promise
jack-knifing as soon as it’s made
and all remaining light is held
in the keeping of one white rose.
There is evening sleeved in this afternoon
and here is rain, like children streaming
in the door, all scarves and stories
from a world elsewhere
where the loneliness of the gladiolus
in its frenzy of red
means very little, maybe as much
as a purse of blackberries
or an earnestness of leaves
with winter gaining on them.
Against which, the garden
imagines itself a meadow,
all its songs turned on their heads
by one efficient wind.
Or a room no child has slept in
or has any memory of.
Or a pane of glass
on which shadows congregate
like love talk or slight promises;
like rain.