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Ian Caws

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Rue

Summer rippled the path
Of the physic garden but all we took
Was the scent of the rue.  It seemed
Sufficient then to soothe
Discomforts we could not have named
Or thought of in weather that never broke.

All around, circumstance
Climbed, like the heat from a tarred road.
We always went back to the rue
And found it had not once
Failed or had anything to do
With such things yet mopped sickness from the bed.

And I, who would reduce
It all to stone, candleflame and a sense
Of snowfall, watch the winter sun
Contemplating the ice
But think of the rue, the garden
That nurtures it for spring by the cold fence.

Hold the yellow flower
And keep it for me when June is burning,
When we walk the physic garden
And peel off each layer
Of scent as if what we have done
And were, stays and waits for us, returning.

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