2.

What is not said in the garden

The roses could almost hear, the whisper

Of thorns caught our hearts like a limb

Awry, unable to make the stile, the meadows

Stretching down to the river, the ghosts

Of war poets, murmuring of love, haunt

The hedges and the pub. The darkness

Of December remains a trace, the years

Have run from our bones and we would not

Believe it until it happened. These fingers

Are stiff with time and the mind stunned

That it would be thus. Time happens to other

People, bent out of shape like a pear tree

In a gale: beyond the wall you speak still.