Ivy climbs gnarled knotted trunks
Darker lines and streams divide where white wool digs below tufts of heather and tall tipped reeds
Calm flat lakes vacate
Pale hues of birch become rocky barren lands of moss and brown broken bracken
Thick conifers multiplied for miles
The mountain side tipped with ice
Houses change like the hedgerow from new to old
Some unfurnished whilst others glow

My misgivings hide among the shadows,
In the tangle of long grass along the hedgerow
Between your wide open fields and my cultivated lawn.

Unspoken truths crowd out the spring bulbs,
Now snarled with weeds and thorned with blackberry,
The cobbled pathway which once linked my hope with your promise.

Will you meet me at the gate by the old sycamore tree?
If yes, then bring your dreams, untethered, and the dappled autumn sunshine,
I will bring my careful notions and the soft spring rain.

Prim roses and wild lilac; a velvet ash and sweet chestnuts,
Your gypsy summer, my redbud winter,
Our season, one garden.