THE GARDEN AS A GARDEN

5 9 R T H E G A R D E N A S A G A R D E N V O N A G R O A R K E Cornflower pods may split to yield a summer evening or a yellow blouse but the garden remains every garden I ever thought to make, the trellis threaded by an albertine I carried with me through four decades in a sky-blue pot. Mine for summer. Mine for the year. Mindful that what the garden cherishes is the lapse between sun-up and the first glance thrown its way when it gathers itself, calms the earthen ache in its bones and embroiders on its blue-veined skin whatever day to come, flower by flower inveigled out of those blue years to the point of where I am or the point where I am not. Oh, garden strung between cherry and rowan, absolve each trace of my desiring, remember nothing of me. ...