Who Makes a Garden
Nancy Byrd Turner
Who rears four walls around a little plot—
Some still, secluded spot—
And digs and sows there, has done a thing
Beyond his reckoning.
In one small, fended space
Beauty and deep untellable content
Make their abiding place,
And measureless peace is pent.
There rime takes note of tender happenings:
The shimmer of a butterfly’s blue wings
Above the clustered phlox;
A spider’s will to do a miracle
Between two hollyhocks;
The twilight cricket’s humble prophesies;
A brown bird by a pool; and all that goes
Into the lovely lifetime of a rose;
A pansy’s lore; and little questing bees’
Strange, sweet biographies.
Who makes a garden plans beyond his knowing,
Old roads are lost, old dwellings have their day;
And he himself, far summoned, passes hence
An unfamiliar way;—
But lo, he has not perished with his going;
For year by year as April’s heart is stirred,
Spring after punctual Spring,
Across the little acre’s wintry gray
Comes, slowly traced, an old authentic word
In radiant lettering:
A shining script of tendril, vibe, and whorl,
New green, faint rose, clear lavender and pearl,
Petal by delicate petal, leaf by leaf…
As though his own hand from the Mystery
Wrote, for all the earth to see, upon a fadeless beauteous scroll, his brief
For immortality.
In this poem ‘brief’ refers to a written summary of facts to support a case.
