Garden

Since you have gone

I have disgracefully neglected

The garden you had magically coaxed

From that unpromising wilderness of weeds

Behind the home we shared for all those years.

I tell myself there are excuses:

My grieving indolence,

My failing fitness,

The trivial, new preoccupations of my days;

But in my leaden heart I know

My failure to preserve is reprehensible.

And so I have for some time now avoided

The confrontation of my culpability,

Not deigning to look out upon the wreck.

But suddenly it is spring. A mayhem

Of unimpeded growth has overwhelmed

The spaces that you tended with such love,

Erratic blooms have forced their way

Through the tangle, fixing my attention:

Columbine, Honesty, Welsh Poppies,

Flowers that you introduced, surviving still,

Despite the lack of care

Since you have gone.