Graphiti


The mistress of the mini-masterpiece

was fixed upon her project of renewal,

her garden of Japan, her plot of peace,

her little gem set in a royal jewel.

We saw her tending plants that day at Kew.

‘We should remember this’, I think I said.

So there among my foxgloves and bamboo

I drew her in acrylics on the shed.

Now she is just a memory of you

she gardens on when all the flowers are dead.

I see her toiling there the winter through.

It’s not a fertile spot but some flowers grow.

She talks to them perhaps. Would it were so.