Kitchen Garden

Rupert Craft-Cooke

 

The evening mist in the garden is white and chill,

And all the vegetables stand in waiting rows,

They lift their formless leaves and stalks, so still,

You would say that hardly a root of them drinks, or grows.

 

The stately stems of the artichokes, tall as men,

In a rank like soldiers stand, and the spinach sighs,

With leaves torn down, remembering evenings when

The summer moon laughed out of the racing skies.

 

And the bubbling Brussels sprouts with the thousand faces,

Smile at the broken celery that had stood

So firm and straight, and mauve sage leaves in places

Set for the housemaid’s hand in boxes of wood.

 

And the cabbages, the fat stupid cabbages spread

Their vacant features in a sleep they have not earned,

Dreaming again of the white butterflies who had said

Such faithful things last summer, and never returned.