01-29-2014, 09:42 AM
My grandmother's garden in spring was like
the courtyard of a faded mansion, where once someone
of note had sat; not to talk of anything grand
or pose, but just to sit, leaving their shadow
in the form of a plaque. "A statesman once sat here."
The cracked paving slabs (pink and yellow,
Battenburg) revealed the brittle grass, now black with age.
Over the rear fence, moulding and bowed, the tops of trees
called out to you, "come here, come here, the world
and all its light are over here". The birds were meaner;
they swooped and soared with gay abandon, featureless
like birds in children's pictures. They rarely stopped
to perch on our birdtable, or tease the brittle grass.
the courtyard of a faded mansion, where once someone
of note had sat; not to talk of anything grand
or pose, but just to sit, leaving their shadow
in the form of a plaque. "A statesman once sat here."
The cracked paving slabs (pink and yellow,
Battenburg) revealed the brittle grass, now black with age.
Over the rear fence, moulding and bowed, the tops of trees
called out to you, "come here, come here, the world
and all its light are over here". The birds were meaner;
they swooped and soared with gay abandon, featureless
like birds in children's pictures. They rarely stopped
to perch on our birdtable, or tease the brittle grass.
"We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges." - Gene Wolfe