The Wonder Garden

The child I was seeks the wonder garden:
little in Levis he wanders, wondering,
among trees that tower over,
Ked-shod heels padding the moist ground.

A narrowness of vision, simplicity
never to be recaptured, a mourning for that bride:
my innocence, that cleaved to my side,
a heart safe from experience.

Now the screws of time tighten, stretched
on the rack of conscience.
I do not mellow into middle age
but struggle for green-limbed days

of fingers smeared with huckleberries,
of knees stained deep with soil.
The insignificant deeds of youth
were replaced by manhood's insignificance:

Ennui of day to day labor,
dependent on scant recompense,
requiring sustenance for flesh.
(O visions of Elysium!)

The time for dreaming, of
leaning in a bower and spinning
devout lines to nothing
is gone, gone lang syne.

Arcadia is laid waste, ravaged,
uncomely and unkempt;
a shadow in some corner of my mind
where passion's spent.


late 80s or early 90s