Like many afternoons the garden lay beneath grey clouds,

its surface gently slopping towards one side and in the higher corner

a tree, bent from birth, outstretched branches bowing towards the north.

Death had many monuments in this garden – the brown sticks strewn among the green,

pale curled leaves in flocks, blood let trunks, and trees, hard and vacant.

Beyond the border of grey fence, a line of bushes, their leaves

scarcely green, preparing for the dry of summer.

Through the garden the wind blew, for the most unhindered

by these pillars of mortality. In some corners the cloud was broken

by a pale blue mirror like spring ice.