Ian Caws
About the Topiary
This, somehow, is the after time, stories
completed, footsteps no longer
heard on the bridge. In the garden,
box and yew are clipped to a stillness, cries
that have been frozen, their echoes linger-
ing in some parallel Eden.
And we have moved into the space beyond,
where fresh symbols have been imposed
from the shadow of a timber
framed house: a quail, a wren, and near the pond
some chess piece or a ball and cone. Each guest
knows himself a stranger, walks by.
Yet we who stay may come to know of worlds
still more unfamiliar than this
and of people who wish never
to arrive. So we are content, the fields'
coldness a memory, while this new place
whose contrived images give a
sense of dream, free of association,
seems to ask nothing in return.
For a while, we will not look back,
but touch manicured leaves with discretion,
take in the artifice with taciturn
assent, wait for the clock to strike.
Page(s) 55
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