Thirteen ways of looking at the garden

After the city, the garden
is quiet, the leaves green
enough to absorb every cry.

This isn’t the first garden.
This isn’t the first cool evening.
We’ve been somewhere similar
before.

The garden wends its way toward
sleep, the flowers
close their dusty fingers, shut their
eyes.

The sounds of the city can hardly
climb the garden wall.

I do not know which to prefer:
the silence of an ending
or the silence of enduring,
rest at dusk or waiting for dawn.

Is there water here in the garden?
A fountain, a stream?
I am hearing water
The continuing wash even now as it darkens
The continuing wash against the riven shore.
Guard sounds like garden but these
men look out of place.

Who nests in this garden? Wren,
reed warbler, crane?
Crow or kingfisher?
What flash, there by the water?
Then doubled on the surface, what
dives down, comes clean, and again,
again can fly?

In the dark, these men
light cigarettes, lean against the
blocking stone
while all around them in the garden
shadows, there are
other stones and other men,
sleeping.

Who belongs here? Who can own
a garden?
Who could be old enough or young
to claim it?
What key might keep the breathing
life at bay?
The night waits in steady rhythm, knowing no more
than what we know.

The women who watch the stars
turn now inside,
wrap spices in clean white cloths,
small wallets to carry in baskets
tomorrow
back to the garden for him.

At the sight of the kingfisher flying
in the garden light
every stone in the stone city would
cry out a name.

It will be morning soon in this
second garden. Morning first
and then the day
to follow.