{"id":3218,"date":"2013-11-29T21:59:11","date_gmt":"2013-11-29T21:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=3218"},"modified":"2013-12-15T21:16:25","modified_gmt":"2013-12-15T21:16:25","slug":"vona-groarke-5-poems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=3218","title":{"rendered":"Five Poems"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>
\nThe Blue Garden<\/strong><\/p>\n

 
\nBluebell or cornflower, it\u2019s all the one
\nto the cherry tree with its many doors
\nopening, hour by hour, on one colour
\nas rooms with forgetful walls might do,
\ntheir layers of paint and antique paper
\ngolden with birds and golden flowers,
\nhunkering under a whim of novelty.
\n 
\nBy such means does the day
\ntake the trouble to explain how
\nthe blackbird in the cherry tree
\nmakes it his business to assemble
\nin its simple branches a home
\none takes for an inside world
\ncrowded with golden songs.
\n 
\nBy such means do I slip myself
\ninto the ink of assembled flowers,
\nlavender and forget-me-not,
\nsea-holly and allium all the one
\nto the cherry tree, its papery blossom
\nand the blackbird in my sky-blue study
\nmaking bits of song out of his day.
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Garden Before Rain<\/strong><\/p>\n

 
\nThe garden holds its stillness as a promise
\njack-knifing as soon as it\u2019s made
\n 
\nand all remaining light is held
\nin the keeping of one white rose.
\n 
\nThere is evening sleeved in this afternoon
\nand here is rain, like children streaming
\n 
\nin the door, all scarves and stories
\nfrom a world elsewhere
\n 
\nwhere the loneliness of the gladiolus
\nin its frenzy of red
\n 
\nmeans very little, maybe as much
\nas a purse of blackberries
\n 
\nor an earnestness of leaves
\nwith winter gaining on them.
\n 
\nAgainst which, the garden
\nimagines itself a meadow,
\n 
\nall its songs turned on their heads
\nby one efficient wind.
\n 
\nOr a room no child has slept in
\nor has any memory of.
\n 
\nOr a pane of glass
\non which shadows congregate
\n 
\nlike love talk or slight promises;
\nlike rain.
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The New Garden<\/strong>
\n– for Helen O\u2019Leary<\/em><\/p>\n

 
\nIn our inland gardens, the sea
\nwith its freight of sorrowful songs
\nbecomes a question answered by years
\nand poppies with their grown children,
\ntheir sunspilt photographs.
\n 
\nA light blue door with butterfly hinges
\nand a seedhead lock is opening for us.
\nAnd here we are in what we do
\ncourtesy of unphased colour
\npinned to sentences and air,
\n 
\nstraight lines with the past in them
\nand something else besides
\nto put as we wish in ungilded frames
\none white rose after another
\nuntil the garden is done with summer,
\n 
\nyes, our loss. No way back but back again
\nto gardens that forget themselves
\nfor whole months at a time
\nonly to turn out their box of tricks
\nat the first tilt of new light.
\n 
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Six Gardens of Metaphor<\/strong>
\n– for Tommy<\/em><\/p>\n

 
\nOne is a wood of a single tree
\na branch with metal leaves attached
\nby way of a copper beech.
\n <\/p>\n

One is a river
\na length of brown ribbon tied to
\na needle of pure gold.
\n 
\nOne is an ocean
\nsea-heath and sea-holly
\nwith an undertow of moss.
\n 
\nOne is a mountain
\na stretch of centuries
\nwithin a pebble\u2019s reach.
\n 
\nOne is mist in a hollow
\nan acer over gravel
\nraked to a new day.
\n 
\nOne is the future
\nreadied for you
\nbehind this bamboo screen.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Garden in Winter<\/strong><\/p>\n

 
\nAgainst the orange of rowan berries,
\ndebutante hollyhocks turn dowdy
\nand nasturtiums seem old hat.
\nI make an hour\u2019s work out of spilling
\ncornflower seedpods out into air
\nwithout a hint of blue in it all summer.
\nMy antic husbandry. I let the gooseberries
\nrot for not knowing when to pick them
\nand tied sweet peas to driftwood stakes
\nwith too much ocean still in them. Soon,
\nit will be time to bring geraniums indoors,
\nmarshal them under the console table
\nto sit out weather people fret about.
\nAlready, nights have a seam of frost
\nin which the stitching is coming loose.
\nDark hours rummage through the rooms
\nso my heart, (that dogged, little thing),
\nlearns to accept itself as autumnal
\nin a plangent, bulb-lit sort of way.
\nNo telling when one thought
\nbecomes another;
\nwhen the very idea
\nof the garden in winter
\nslips into the notion
\nthat life, on its own,
\nis not nearly enough.
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Blue Garden   Bluebell or cornflower, it\u2019s all the one to the cherry tree with its many doors opening, hour by hour, on one colour as rooms with forgetful walls might do, their layers of paint and antique paper golden with birds and golden flowers, hunkering under a whim of novelty.   By such […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[298,299],"tags":[302],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nFive Poems - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=3218\" \/>\n<link rel=\"next\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=3218&page=2\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Five Poems - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Blue Garden   Bluebell or cornflower, it\u2019s all the one to the cherry tree with its many doors opening, hour by hour, on one colour as rooms with forgetful walls might do, their layers of paint and antique paper golden with birds and golden flowers, hunkering under a whim of novelty.   By such […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=3218\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-11-29T21:59:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-12-15T21:16:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Vona Groarke\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Vona Groarke\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=3218\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=3218\",\"name\":\"Five Poems - The Manchester Review\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-11-29T21:59:11+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-12-15T21:16:25+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/58e8a4b3d91d282b0e9bc81a1bdaf72b\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=3218\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#website\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/\",\"name\":\"The Manchester Review\",\"description\":\"The Manchester Review\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/58e8a4b3d91d282b0e9bc81a1bdaf72b\",\"name\":\"Vona Groarke\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-includes\/images\/blank.gif\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-includes\/images\/blank.gif\",\"caption\":\"Vona Groarke\"},\"description\":\"Vona Groarke's sixth, PBS Recommended poetry collection, X, will be published by the Gallery Press in February 2014. 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