This Garden, This Day

Splotch of the sun’s yolk.
Azure maze of sky.
Flower to fruit.
Seed to vine.
How silently everything blooms,
how silently everything dies.

Tracing the immortal road,
who knows
how far the rest is.
The sun doesn’t know.
The sunflower doesn’t.

But he,
playing hide and seek
with himself,
looks out
at the horizon
to see someone coming,
not knowing
who it is.

He won’t hazard a guess.
He won’t say, Who are you,
emptying my days,
folding one moment
into a moment less,
raking the dry leaves
of time?

I will wait in my garden,
gather the blind fruits
among the kinship of ridged barks,
bearing the palpitant heart
of the south wind.
On hind legs, a house cat –
I will keep watch –
listening
to the love-song
of a parakeet.
I will echo that song.

But the stranger says, No, no, remember
this garden,
this day.
We’re lost,
and we’ll be again,
when light leans
on the chipped red pots
of summer,
guavas ripen,
pomegranates swell
to heat,
in the aftertaste of dust
on the old
tongue of rain.

We’ll sit through the bare autumn.
We’ll remain —
we’ll remain
still through winter,
on this tired bench.
We’ll outlast the seasons,
but forget
our names.