OLEANDERS

( After  Robert Frost )

 

Long gardens behind the sea,

grass, then stones before the waves

that are nothing now in the early

morning of this summer day,

in the quiet washing of the ground swell,

the low, vast shuffling.

There is a distant little bell ringing

on the horizon’s open well

with that hint of a haze like a mind

resting in its own breath.

And there is this full, sweet

aroma in the gardens, a lingering

you have fed for ages.

expecting a myriad of stages.

Anything fulfilled?

Oh, it’s too vague and too great to tell,

songs spread like the ground swell

and have been seeping, seeping well.

And are still here, here and untold

after a whole life’s lull

and all the ghosts’ gold.