Poem: Old Garden

Old Garden

She planted hollyhocks along the wall,
A lilac bush beside the garden gate,
A rambler rose that climbed so straight and tall,
The arbor is unequal to the weight.
And so it sags on one end,
As tired shoulders droop sometimes at night.
Amid the waste of weeds, the colors blend
Into an earthly rainbow of delight.

The little house she lived in then is gone,
For time has worked its elemental way,
The chimney stones lie on the grassless lawn,
Like mouldering bones returning to the clay.
But beauty that she planted still flames here,
A monument the earth rebuilds each year.

---Catherine E. Berry