I finished Damasio on consciousness, watched Simon Schama
on Scotland's 18th century, and read the TLS saving the NYRB
for tomorrow with Christopher Woodward's (Director of the
Holburne Museum in Bath) 'In Ruin'. Then instead of putting
Bob Harris on the radio on I thought I would sit and contemplate
a poem. All evening I have been feeding and stroking the
cat but I have enough Cat Poems so he is getting nothing.
It would be a parody to write one. The poem that dominates
me is one from a dozen years ago but it would be far beyond
me to rewrite it now. Robert Lowell said 'All the veins of
silver give out' then wrote his fine last book. But I dont think
I will be doing that. Some things last forever. Although my
garden is now overgrown by weeds and is beyond saving. I wonder
if the poem still holds up. It is a slight affair.
Here is the poem:
Susan's garden
It is a wilderness.
I built it.
I planted three blackcurrant bushes,
A gooseberry bush and a bilberry.
I planted two giant blackberry roots.
On the ridge below it
I planted over twenty heathers,
Rich in colour and variety.
Now it is wild roses and convolvulus
Interspersed with blackberry fangs.
I planted the wild roses as a border.
They have encroached.
I never go there now.
I used to sit on the wall with Fritz Cat beside me
Looking out over Susan's garden
Down across the rooftops of Bath.
Now it is finished.
The convolvulus attacks my forsythia and lilac.
I let it climb.
These last ten years I have lost interest.
There is no dynamism in me
As when Fritz was a kitten
And I used to work till dusk in the garden.
Now it is a wilderness,
Like Coatham when I was a child.
I carry my past with me.
It will always be Susan's garden.
Douglas Clark, Bath, England mailto: [log in to unmask]
Lynx: Poetry from Bath .......... http://www.bath.ac.uk/~exxdgdc/lynx.html
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