Oh sweet garden. Dearest friend, My conscience, Confidant, Companion-perennial, My hands desire, Let me be your Guardian Angel among the flowers. Not for me H.C. Andersonβs grisly tale of sunbeams and sick children, with the angel filching the flowers to bloom more brightly in heaven than on earth. God forbid! My garden is my heaven, and Iβll make myself wings if I must to fool such fair-weather flowers
This is the penultimate poem of my song cycle Pleasing Myself after the textile images of Janet Bolton.